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SEYMOUR    DURST 


'i. '  'Tort  nie4u/    iyitn/ierdcm^  o^  Je  JAanha^tarus 


FORT    NEW    AMSTERDAi^ 


(MEW   YORK),      1651. 


IVhen  you  leave,  please  leave  this  book 

Because  it  has  been  said 
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Except  a  loaned  book." 


I 


Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 

Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


THE  GREAT  BRIDGE 


THE  ORATIONS  OP 


Hon.    ABRAM    S.    HEWITT 


AND 


Rev.    Dr.    R.    S.    STORRS 


DELIVERED 

ON    THE    OCCASION    OF    THE    OPENING    OF    BRIDGB 

BETWEEN  NEW  YORK  AND   BROOKLYN, 

MAY  24,    1883. 


NEW  YORK: 

JOHN    B.    ALDEN,   PUBLISHER 

1885. 


TR0W8 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDINQ  COMPANY^ 

NEW  YORK. 


THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 


ORATION  OF  ABRAM  S.  HEWITT. 

Two  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago  the  good  ship 
Tiger,  commanded  by  Captain  Adraien  Block,  was 
burned  to  the  water's  edge  as  she  hiy  at  anclior  just  off 
the  southern  end  of  Manhattan  Island.  Her  crew,  thus 
forced  into  winter  quarters,  were  the  first  white  men 
who  built  and  occupied  a  house  on  the  land  where  New 
York  now  stands;  ''then,"  to  quote  the  graphic  lan- 
guage of  Mrs.  Lamb  in  her  history  of  the  city,  "in 
primeval  solitude,  waiting  till  commerce  should  come 
and  claim  its  own.  Nature  wore  a  hardy  countenance,  as 
wild  and  as  untamed  as  the  savage  landholders.  Manhat- 
tan's twenty-two  thousand  acres  of  rock,  lake  and  rolling 
table-land,  rising  at  places  to  a  height  of  one  hundred 
and  thirty-eight  feet,  were  covered  with  sombre  forests, 
grassy  knolls  and  dismal  swamps.  The  trees  were  lofty; 
and  old,  decayed  and  withered  limbs  contrasted  with  the 
younger  growth  of  branches;  and  wild  flowers  wasted 
their  sweetness  among  the  dead  leaves  and  uncut  herb- 
age at  their  roots.  The  wanton  grapevine  swung  care- 
lessly from  the  topmost  boughs  of  the  oak  and  the  syca- 
more; and  blackberry  and  raspberry  bushes,  like  a 
picket  guard,  presented  a  bold  front  in  all  possible  ave- 
nues of  approach.  The  entire  surface  of  the  island  was 
bold  and  granitic,  and  in  profile  resembled  the  cartilag- 
inous back  of  the  sturgeon."  This  pimeval  scene  was 
the  product   of   natural   forces  working   through   un- 


4  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

counted  periods  of  time;  the  contineut  slowly  rising  and 
falling  in  the  sea  like  the  heaving  breast  of  a  world 
asleep ;  glaciers  carving  patiently  through  ages  the  deep 
estuaries;  seasons  innumerable  clothing  the  hills  with 
alternate  bloom  and  decay. 

The  same  sun  shines  to-day  upon  the  same  earth ;  yet 
how  transformed!  Could  there  be  a  more  astounding 
exhibition  of  the  power  of  man  to  change  the  face  of 
nature  than  the  panoramic  view  which  presents  itself 
to  the  spectator  standing  upon  the  crowning  arch  of  the 
Bridge  whose  completion  we  are  here  to-day  to  celebrate 
in  the  honored  presence  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  with  their  fifty  millions;  of  the  Governor  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  with  its  five  millions;  and  of  the 
Mayors  of  the  two  cities,  aggregating  over  two  millions 
of  inhabitants?  In  the  place  of  stillness  and  solitude, 
the  footsteps  of  these  millions  of  human  beings;  instead 
of  the  smooth  waters,  "  uu  vexed  by  any  keel,"  highways 
of  commerce  ablaze  with  the  flags  of  all  the  nations;  and 
where  once  was  the  green  monotony  of  forested  hills,  the 
piled  and  towering  splendors  of  a  vast  metropolis,  the 
countless  homes  of  industry,  the  echoing  marts  of  trade 
the  gorgeous  palaces  of  luxury,  the  silent  and  steadfast 
spires  of  worship! 

To  crown  all,  the  work  of  separation  wrought  so  surely, 
yet  so  slowly,  by  the  hand  of  time,  is  now  reversed  in 
our  own  day,  and  "  Manahatta"  and  '*  Seawauhaka"  are 
joined  again  as  once  they  were  before  the  dawn  of  life 
in  the  far  azoic  ages. 

"It  is  donel 

Clang  of  bell  and  roar  of  gun 
Send  the  tidings  up  and  down. 

How  the  belfries  rock  and  reel ! 

How  the  great  guns,  peal  on  peal, 
Fling  the  joy  from  town  to  town '" 


ORATION  OF  ABEAM  S,   HEWITT.  5 

**  What  liatli  God  wrought!"  were  the  words  of  won- 
der which  ushered  into  being  the  magnetic  telegraph, 
the  greatest  marvel  of  the  many  marvelous  inventions 
of  the  present  century.  It  was  the  natural  impulse  of 
the  pious  maiden  who  chose  this  first  message  of  rever- 
ence and  awe,  to  look  to  the  Divine  Power  as  the  au- 
thor of  a  new  gospel.  For  it  was  the  invisible,  and  not 
the  visible  agency  which  addressed  itself  to  her  percep- 
tions. Neither  the  bare  poles,  nor  the  slender  wire,  nor 
even  the  small  battery,  could  suggest  an  adequate  ex- 
planation for  the  extinction  of  time  and  space  which  was 
manifest  to  her  senses,  and  she  could  only  say,  "  What 
hath  God  wrought!" 

But  when  we  turn  from  the  unsightly  telegrapli  to 
the  graceful  structure  at  whose  portal  we  stand,  and 
Avhen  we  contrast  the  airy  outline  of  its  curves  of  beauty 
pendant  between  massive  towers  suggestive  of  art  alone, 
with  the  over-reaching  vault  of  heaven  above  and  the 
ever-moviug  flood  of  waters  beneath*  the  work  of  om- 
nipotent power,  we  are  irresistibly  moved  to  exclaim, 
What  hath  man  wrought! 

SUCH  A   STRUCTURE  ONLY  POSSIBI-E  IN   THIS  AGE. 

Man  hath  indeed  wrought  for  more  than  strikes  the 
eye  in  this  daring  undertaking,  which,  by  the  general 
judgment  of  engineers,  stands  to  (fay  without  a  rival 
among  the  wonders  of  human  skill.  It  is  not  the  work 
of  any  one  man  or  of  any  one  age.  It  is  the  result  of  the 
study  of  the  experience  and  of  the  knowledge  of  many 
men  in  many  ages.  It  is  not  merely  a  creation ;  it  is  a 
growth.  It  stands  before  us  to-day  as  the  sum  and  epi- 
tome of  human  knowledge;  as  the  very  heir  of  the  nges; 
as  the  latest  glory  of  centuries  of  patient  observation, 
profound  study  and  accumulated  skill,  gained,  step  by 


6  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

step,  in  th3  never-endmg  struggle  of  man  to  subdue  the 
forces  of  nature  to  bis  control  and  use. 

In  no  previous  period  of  the  world's  history  could 
this  Bridge  have  been  built.  Within  the  last  hundred 
years  the  greater  part  of  the  knowledge  necessary  for 
its  erection  has  been  gained.  Chemistry  was  not  born 
until  1776,  the  year  when  political  economy  was  ushered 
into  the  world  by  Adam  Smith,  and  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  proclaimed  by  the  Continental 
Congress,  to  be  maintained  at  the  point  of  the  sword 
by  George  Washington.  In  the  same  year  Watt  pro- 
duced his  successful  steam  engine,  and  a  century  has 
not  elapsed  since  the  first  specimen  of  his  skill  was 
erected  on  this  continent.  The  law  of  gravitation  was 
indeed  known  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  the  intricate 
laws  of  force  wdiich  now  control  the  domain  of  industry 
had  not  been  developed  by  the  study  of  physical  science, 
and  their  practical  applications  have  only  been  effectually 
accomplished  within  our  own  day,  and  indeed,  some  of 
the  most  important  of  them  during  the  building  of  the 
Bridge.  For  use  in  the  caissons,  the  perfecting  of  the 
electric  light  came  too  late,  though  happily  in  season 
for  the  illumination  of  the  finished  work. 

This  construction  has  not  only  employed  every  abstract 
conclusion  and  formula  of  mathematics,  whether  derived 
from  the  study  of  the  earth  or  the  heavens,  but  the  whole 
structure  may  be  said  to  rest  upon  mathematical  founda- 
tion. The  great  discoveries  of  chemistry,  shoAving  the 
composition  of  water,  the  nature  of  gases,  the  properties 
of  metals,  the  laws  and  processes  of  physics,  from  the 
strains  and  pressures  of  mighty  masses  to  the  delicate 
vibrations  of  molecules,  are  all  recorded  here.  Every 
department  of  human  industr}^  is  represented,  from  the 
quarrying  and  cutting  of  the  stones,  the  mining  and 


ORATION  OF  ABB  AM  S.   HEWITT.  7 

smelting  of  the  ores,  the  conversion  of  iron  into  steel  by 
tiie  pneumatic  process,  to  the  final  shaping  of  the  masses 
of  metal  into  useful  forms  and  its  reduction  into  wire 
so  as  to  develop  in  the  highest  degree  the  tensile  strength 
which  fits  it  for  the  work  of  suspension.  Every  tool 
which  the  ingenuity  of  man  has  invented  has  some- 
where, in  some  special  detail,  contributed  its  share  ia 
the  accomplishment  of  the  final  result. 

*'  Ah!  what  a  wondrous  thing  it  is 
To  note  how  many  wheels  of  toil 
One  word,  one  thought  can  set  in  motion." 

But  without  the  most  recent  discoveries  of  science, 
which  have  enabled  steel  to  be  substituted  for  iron — ap- 
plications made  since  the  original  plans  of  the  Bridge 
were  devised — we  should  liave  had  a  structure  fit,  in- 
deed, for  use,  but  of  such  moderate  capacity  that  we 
could  not  have  justified  the  claim  which  we  are  now 
able  to  make,  that  the  cities  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn 
have  constructed,  and  to-day  rejoice  in  the  possession 
of  the  crowning  glory  of  an  age  memorable  for  great 
industrial  achievements. 

This  is  not  the  proper  occasion  for  describing  the 
details  of  this  undertaking.  This  grateful  task  will  be 
performed  by  the  engineer  in  the  final  report,  with 
which  every  great  work  is  properly  committed  to  the 
judgment  of  posterity.  But  there  are  some  lessons  to 
be  drawn  from  the  hasty  considerations  I  have  pre- 
sented, which  may  encourage  and  comfort  us  as  to  the 
destiny  of  man,  and  the  outcome  of  human  progress. 

What  message,  then,  of  hope  and  cheer  does  this 
achievement  convey  to  those  who  would  fain  believe 
that  love  travels  hand  in  hand  with  light  along  the 
rugged  pathway  of  time?  Have  the  discoveries  of  sci- 
ence, the  triumphs  of  art,  and  the  progress  of  civiliza- 


8  THE  GREAT  BBIBGE. 

tion,  which  have  made  its  coDStniction  a  possibility  and 
a  reality,  promoted  the  welfare  of  mankind,  and  raised 
the  great  mass  of  the  people  to  a  higher  plane  of  life? 

SOCIAL   CHANGES  WHICH  THE  BRIDGE   ILLUSTRATES. 

This  question  can  best  be  answered  by  comparing"  ihe 
compensation  of  the  labor  employed  in  the  building  of 
this  bridge  with  the  earnings  of  labor  employed  uj^on 
works  of  equal  magnitude  in  ages  gone  by.  The  money 
expended  for  the  work  of  construction  proper  on  the 
bridge,  exclusive  of  laud  damages  and  other  expenses, 
such  as  interest,  not  entering  into  actual  cost,  is  nine 
million  ($9,000,000)  dollars.  This  money  has  been  dis- 
tributed in  numberless  channels— for  quarrying,  for 
mining,  for  smelting,  for  fabricating  the  metals,  for 
shaping  the  materials,  and  erecting  the  work,  employ- 
ins:  every  kind  and  form  of  human  labor.  The  wasres 
paid  at  the  bridge  itself  may  be  taken  as  the  fair  stand- 
ard of  the  wages  paid  for  the  work  done  elsevrhere. 
These  wages  are : 

Average. 

Laborf^rs  $1  T5  per  day. 

Blacksmiths    3  50  to  $4  00  per  day. 

Carpenters  3  00  to    3  50  per  day. 

Masons  and  stonecutters 3  50  to    4  00  per  day. 

Riggers 2  00  to    2  50  per  day. 

Painters 2  00  to    2  50  per  day. 

Taking  all  these  kinds  of  labor  into  account,  the 
wages  paid  for  work  on  the  bridge  will  thus  average 
$2.50  per  day. 

Now  if  this  work  had  been  done  at  the  time  when  the 
Pyramids  were  built,  with  the  skill,  appliances,  and 
tools  then  in  use,  and  if  the  money  available  for  its  exe- 
cution had  been  limited  to  nine  million  ($9,000,000)  dol- 
lars the  laborers  employed  would  have  received  an 
average  of  not  more  than  two  cents  per  day  in  money  of 


OPINION  OF  ABRAM  S.   HEWITT,  9 

the  same  purchasing  power  as  the  coin  of  the  present 
era.  In  other  words,  the  effect  of  the  discoveries  of 
new  methods,  tools,  and  laws  of  force  has  been  to  raise 
the  wages  of  labor  more  than  a  hundredfold  in  the  in- 
terval which  has  elapsed  since  tlie  Pyramids  were  built. 
I  shall  not  weaken  the  suggestive  force  of  this  statement 
by  any  comments  upon  the  astounding  evidence  of  prog- 
ress, beyond  the  obvious  corollary  that  such  a  state  of 
civilization  as  gave  birth  to  the  Pyramids  would  now  be 
the  signal  for  universal  bloodshed,  revolution,  and  an- 
archy. I  do  not  underestimate  the  hardships  borne  by 
the  labor  of  this  century.  They  are,  indeed,  grievous, 
and  to  lighten  them  is,  as  it  should  be,  the  chief  con- 
cern of  statesmanship.  But  this  compai-ison  proves 
that  through  fortyHenturies  these  hardships  have  been 
steadily  diminished;  that  all  the  achievements  of  sci- 
ence, all  the  discoveries  of  art,  all  the  inventions  of 
genius,  all  the  progress  of  civilization  tend  by  a  higher 
and  inmiutable  law  to  the  steady  and  certain  ameliora- 
tion of  the  condition  of  society.  It  shows  that,  not- 
withstanding the  apparent  growth  of  great  fortunes,  due 
to  an  era  of  unparalled  development,  the  distribution 
of  the  fruits  of  labor  is  approaching  from  age  to  age  to 
more  equitable  conditions,  and  must  at  last  reach  the 
plane  of  absolute  justice  between  man  and  man. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  such 
a  comparison.  The  Pyramids  were  built  by  the  sacri- 
fices of  the  living  for  the  dead.  They  served  ro  useful 
purpose,  except  to  make  odious  to  future  generations 
the  tyranny  which  reduces  human  beings  into  beasts  of 
burden.  In  this  age  of  the  world  such  a  waste  of  effort 
would  not  be  tolerated.  To-day  the  expenditures  of 
communities  are  directed  to  useful  purposes.  Except 
only  works  designed  for  defense  in  time  of  war,  the 


10  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE, 

wealth  of  society  is  now  mainly  expended  in  opening 
channels  of  communication  for  the  free  play  of  com- 
merce and  the  communion  of  the  human  race.  An 
analysis  of  the  distribution  of  the  surplus  earnings  of 
man  after  providing  food,  shelter,  and  raiment,  sliows 
thiit  they  are  chiefly  absorbed  by  railways,  canals,  ships, 
bridges,  and  telegraphs.  In  ancient  times  these  objects 
of  expenditure  were  scarcely  known.  Our  bridge  is 
one  of  the  most  conspicuous  examples  of  this  change 
in  the  social  condition  of  the  world  and  of  the  feeling 
of  men.  In  the  Middle  Ages  cities  walled  each  other 
out,  and  the  fetters  of  prejudice  and  tyranny  held  the 
energies  of  man  in  hopeless  bondage.  To-day  men  and 
nations  seek  free  intercourse  with  each  other,  and  the 
whole  force  of  the  intellect  and  enft-gy  of  the  world  is 
expended  in  breaking  down  the  barriers  established  by 
nature  or  created  by  man,  to  the  solidarity  of  the  human 
race. 

And  yet  in  view  of  this  tendency,  the  most  striking 
and  characteristic  feature  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
there  still  are  those  who  believe  and  teach  that  obstruc- 
tion is  the  creator  of  wealih;  that  the  peoples  can  be 
made  great  and  free  by  the  erection  of  artificial  barriers 
to  the  beneficent  action  of  commerce,  and  the  unre- 
stricted intercourse  of  men  and  nations  with  each 
other.  If  they  are  right,  then  this  bridge  is  a  gigantic 
blunder,  and  the  doctrine  which  bids  us  love  our  neigh- 
bors as  ourselves  is  founded  upon  a  misconception  of 
the  Divine  purpose. 

A  MONUMENT  OF  DEVOTION  TO  THE  PUBLIC  WEAL. 

But  the  Bridge  is  more  than  an  embodiment  of  the 
scientific  knowledge  of  physical  laws  or  a  symbol  of 
social  tendencies.     It  is  equally  a  monument  to  the 


ORATION  OF  ABEAM  S,  HEWITT,         11 

moral  qualities  of  the  human  soul.  It  could  never  have 
been  built  by  mere  knowledge  and  scientific  skill  alone. 
It  required  in  addition  the  infinite  patience  and  un- 
wearied courage  by  w^hicli  great  results  are  achieved. 
It  demanded  the  endurance  of  heat  and  cold  and  physi- 
cal distress.  Its  constructors  have  had  to  face  death  in 
its  most  repulsive  form.  Death,  indeed,  was  the  fate 
of  its  great  projector,  and  dread  disease  the  heritage  of 
the  greater  engineer  who  has  brought  it  to  completion. 
The  faith  of  the  saint  and  the  courage  of  the  hero  have 
been  combined  in  the  conception,  the  design  and  the 
execution  of  this  work 

Let  ns  then  record  the  names  of  the  engineers  and 
foremen  who  have  thus  made  humanity  itself  their 
debtor,  for  the  successful  achievement  which  is  not  the 
result  of  accident  or  of  chance,  but  is  the  fruit  of  de- 
sign, and  of  the  consecration  of  all  personal  interest  to 
the  public  weal.  They  are:  John  A.  Roebling,  who 
conceived  tlie  project  and  formulated  the  plan  of  the 
Bridge;  Washington  A.  Roebling,  who,  inheriting  his 
father's  genius,  and  more  than  his  father's  knowledge 
and  skill,  has  directed  the  execution  of  this  great  work 
from  its  inception  to  its  completion;  aided  in  the  several 
departments  by  Charles  C.  Martin,  Francis  CoUingwood, 
William  H.  Payne,  George  W.  McNulty,  AVillielm  Hil- 
derbrand,  Samuel  R.  Probasco  and  E.  F.  Farrington, 
Arthur  V.  Abbott,  William  Vander  Boscli,  Charles 
Young,  and  Harry  Tupple,  who,  in  apparently  subor- 
dinate positions,  have  shown  themselves  peculiarly  fit- 
ted to  command,  because  they  have  known  how  to 
serve.  But  the  record  would  not  be  complete  without 
reverence  to  the  unnamed  men  by  whose  unflinching 
courage,  in  the  depths  of  the  caissons  and  upon  the  sus- 
pended wires,  the  work  was  carried  on  amid  storms  and 


12  TEE  GREAT  BRIBQE, 

accidents  and  dangers  sufficient  to  appal  the  stoutest 
heart.  To  them  we  can  only  render  the  tribute  which 
history  accords  to  those  wlio  fight  as  privates  in  the 
battle  of  freedom,  with  all  the  more  devotion  and 
patriotism  because  their  names  will  never  be  known  by 
tlie  world,  whose  benefactors  they  are.  One  name,  liow- 
ever,  which  will  find  no  place  in  the  official  records, 
cannot  be  passed  over  here  in  silence.  In  ancient  times 
when  great  works  were  constructed  a  goddess  was 
chosen  to  whose  tender  care  they  were  dedicated.  Thus 
the  ruins  of  the  Acropolis  to-day  recall  the  name  of 
Pallas  Athene  to  an  admiring  world.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  the  blessing  of  some  saint  was  invoked  to  protect 
from  the  rude  barbarians,  and  the  destructive  hand  of 
time  the  building  erected  by  man's  devotion  to  the 
worship  of  God.  So  with  this  Bridge  will  ever  be 
coupled  the  thought  of  one  through  the  subtle  alembic 
of  whose  brain,  and  by  whose  facile  fingers  communi- 
cation was  maintained  betw^een  the  directing  power  of 
its  construct  ion  and  the  obedient  agencies  of  its  execu- 
tion. It  is  thus  an  everlasting  mcmument  to  the  self- 
sacriticing  devotion  of  woman  and  of  her  capacit}^  for 
that  higher  education  from  which  she  has  been  too  long 
debarred.  The  name  of  ]Mrs.  Emily  Warren  Roebling 
will  thus  be  inseparably  associated  with  all  that  is  ad- 
mirable in  human  nature,  and  with  all  that  is  wonderful 
in  the  constructive  world  of  art. 

JOHN  A.  HOEBLTNG'S  PLAN  OF  THE  BRIDGE. 

This  tribute  to  the  engineers,  however,  would  not  be 
deserved  if  there  is  to  be  found  any  evidence  of  decep- 
tion on  their  part  in  the  origin  of  the  work,  or  any  com- 
plicity with  fraud  in  its  execution  and  completion.  It 
is  this  consideration  which  induced  me  to  accept   the 


ORATION  OF  ABEAM  S.   HEWITT,         13 

unexpected  invitation  of  the  trustees  to  speak  for  the 
City  of  New  York  on  the  present  occasion.  When  they 
thus  honored  me,  they  did  not  know  that  John  Roeb- 
ling  addressed  to  rne  the  letter  in  which  he  first  sug- 
gested (and,  so  for  as  I  am  aware,  he  was  the  first  engi- 
neer to  suggest),  the  feasibility  of  a  bridge  between  the 
two  cities,  so  constructed  as  to  preserve  unimpaired  the 
freedom  of  navigation.  This  letter,  dated  June  19, 
1857,  I  caused  to  be  printed  in  The  Journal  of  Commerce, 
where  it  attracted  great  attention,  because  it  came  from 
an  engineer  who  had  already  demonstrated  by  success- 
fully building  suspension  bridges  over  the  Schuykill, 
the  Ohio  and  the  Niagara  rivers,  that  he  spoke  with 
the  voice  of  experience  and  authority.  This  letter  was 
the  first  step  toward  the  construction  of  the  work 
wdiich,  however,  came  about  in  a  manner  different  from 
his  expectations,  and  was  finally  completed  on  a  plan 
more  extensive  than  he  had  ventured  to  describe.  It 
has  been  charged  that  the  original  estimates  of  cost  have 
been  far  exceeded  by  the  actual  outlay.  If  this  were 
true,  the  words  of  praise  which  I  have  uttered  for  the 
eni2:ineers  who  designed  and  executed  this  work,  oudit 
rather  to  have  been  a  sentence  of  censure  and  condem- 
nation. Hence  the  invitation  which  came  to  me  un- 
sought seemed  rather  to  be  an  appeal  from  the  grave 
for  such  vindication  as  it  was  in  my  power  to  make, 
and  which  could  not  come  with  equal  force  from  any 
other  quarter. 

Engineers  are  of  two  kinds:  the  creative  and  the  con- 
structive. The  power  to  conceive  great  works  demands 
imagination  and  faith.  The  creative  engineer,  like  the 
poet,  is  born,  not  made.  If  to  the  power  to  conceive  is 
added  the  ability  to  execute  then  have  we  one  of 
these  rare  geniuses,  who  not  only  benefit  the  world,  but 


14  THE  QBE  AT  BIUDGE, 

add  new  glory  to  humanity.  Such  men  were  Michael 
Aiigelo,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Watt,  Wedgewood,  Brunei 
and  Stephenson;  and  such  a  man  was  John  A.  Roebling. 
It  was  his  striking  peculiarity,  that  while  his  concep- 
tions were  bold  and  original,  his  execution  was  always 
exact,  and  within  the  limits  of  cost  which  he  assigned 
to  the  work  of  his  brain.  He  had  made  bridges  a  study, 
and  had  declared  in  favor  of  the  suspension  principle 
for  heavy  traffic,  when  the  greatest  living  authorities 
had  condemned  it  as  costly  and  unsafe.  When  he 
undertook  to  build  a  suspension  bridge  for  railway  use, 
he  did  so  in  the  face  of  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the 
profession,  that  success  would  be  impossible.  George 
Stephenson  had  condemned  the  suspension  princi- 
ple and  approved  the  tubular  girder  for  railway 
traffic.  But  it  was  the  Nemesis  of  Stephenson's  fate, 
that  when  he  came  out  to  approve  the  location  of  the 
great  tubular  bridge  at  Montreal,  he  should  pass  over 
the  Niagara  Eiver  in  a  railway  train,  on  a  suspension 
bridge,  which  he  had  declared  to  be  an  impracticable 
undertaking. 

When  Roebling  suggested  the  bridge  over  the  Enst 
River,  his  ideas  were  limited  to  the  demands  of  the 
time,  and  controlled  by  the  necessity  for  a  profitable  in- 
vestment. He  had  no  expectation  that  the  two  cities 
would  embark  in  the  enterprise.  Indeed,  in  one  of  his 
letters  so  late  as  April  14,  1860,  he  says,  "As  to  the 
corporations  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn  undertakipg 
the  job,  no  such  hope  may  be  entertained  in  our  time.'' 
In  eight  years  thereafter,  these  cities  had  undertaken 
the  task  upon  a  scale  of  expense  far  exceeding  his  origin 
nal  ideas  of  a  structure,  to  be  built  exclusively  by  pri- 
vate  capital  for  the  sake  of  profit. 


ORATION  OF  ABB  AM  S.  HEWITT.        15 

THE  RING  TAKING  UP  THE  WORK. 

How  came  this  miracle  to  pass  ?  The  war  of  the  Re- 
bellion occurred,  delaying  for  a  time  the  further  con- 
sideration of  Roebling's  ideas.  This  war  accustomed 
the  nation  to  expenditures  on  a  scale  of  which  it  had  no 
previous  conception.  It  did  more  then  expend  lari^e 
sums  of  mo*ney.  Officials  became  corrupt  and  organ- 
ized themselves  for  plunder.  In  the  city  of  New  York, 
especially,  the  government  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  baud 
of  thieves,  who  engaged  in  a  series  of  great  and  bene- 
ficial public  works,  not  for  the  good  they  might  do,  but 
for  the  opportunity  which  they  would  afford  to  rob  the 
public  treasury.  They  erected  court-houses  and  armo- 
ries; they  opened  roads,  boulevards  and  parks;  and  they 
organized  two  of  the  grandest  devices  for  transporta- 
tion which  the  genius  of  man  has  ever  conceived;  a 
rapid  transit  elevated  for  New  York,  and  a  great 
highway  between  New  York  and  Brooklyn.  The 
Bridcre  was  commenced,  but  the  rino;  was  driven  into 
exile  by  the  force  of  public  indignation,  before  the 
rapid  transit  scheme,  since  executed  on  a  different  route 
by  private  capital,  was  undertaken.  The  collapse  of 
the  ring  brought  the  work  on  the  Bridge  to  a  standstill. 

It  was  a  timely  event.  The  patriotic  New  Yorker 
might  well  have  exclaimed,  just  before  this  great  de^ 
liverence,  in  the  words  of  the  Consul  of  ancient  Rome, 
in  Macauley's  stirring  poem, 

"  And  if  they  once  may  win  the  bridge, 
What  hope  to  save  the  town  ?" 

Meanwhile,  the  elder  Roebling  has  died,  leaving  be- 
liind  him  his  estimates  and  the  general  plan  of  the 
structure  to  cost,  independent  of  land  damages  and  in- 
terest, about  $7,000,000.     This  great  work  which,  if  not 


16  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

"conceived  in  sin,"  was  ''brought  forth  in  iniquity," 
til  us  became  the  object  of  great  suspicion,  and  of  a 
prejudice  which  has  not  been  removed  to  this  day.  I 
know  tliat  to  many  1  mal^e  a  startling  announcement, 
when  I  state  the  incontrovertible  fact,  that  no  money 
was  ever  stolen  by  the  ring  from  the  funds  of  the 
Bridge;  that  the  wliole  money  raised  has  been  honesily 
expended;  that  the  estimates  for  construction  have  not 
been  materially  exceeded,  and  that  the  excess  of  cost 
over  the  estimates  is  due  to  purchases  of  land  which 
were  never  included  in  the  estimates;  to  interest  paid 
on  the  city  subscriptions;  and  to  the  cost  of  additional 
height  and  breadth  of  the  Bridge,  and  the  increase  of 
sti-ength  rendered  necessary  by  a  better  comprehension 
of  the  volume  of  traffic  between  the  two  cities.  The 
items  covered  by  the  original  estimate  of  $7,000,000, 
have  thus  been  raised  to  $9,000,000,  so  that  $2,000,000 
represents  the  addition  to  the  original  estimates,  and  for 
this  excess,  amounting  to  less  than  30  per  cent,  there  is 
actual  value  in  the  Bridge  in  increased  dimensions  and 
strength,  whereby  its  capacity  has  been  greatly  in- 
creased. 

The  carriage-ways,  as  originally  designed,  would 
have  permitted  only  a  single  line  of  vehicles  in  each 
direction.  The  speed  of  the  entire  procession,  more 
than  a  mile  long,  would  therefore  have  been  limited  by 
the  rate  of  the  slowest;  and  every  accident  causing 
stoppage  to  a  single  cart,  would  have  stopped  ever}^- 
thiug  behind  it  for  an  indefinite  period.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  removal  of  this  objection,  by 
widening  the  carriage-ways,  has  multiplied  manifold 
the  practical  usefulness  of  the  Bridge. 

The  statement  I  have  made  is  due  to  the  memory 
Dot  only  of  John  A.  Eoebling,  but  also  of  Henry  C. 


ORATION  OF  ABEAM  S.   HEWITT.         17 

Murphy,  that  great  man,  who  devoted  his  last  years  to 
this  enterprise;  and  who,  having,  like  Moses,  led  the 
people  through  the  toilsome  way,  was  permitted  only 
to  look,  but  not  to  enter  upon  the  promised  hmd. 

This  testimony  is  due  also  to  the  living  trustees  and 
to  the  engineers  who  have  controlled  and  directed  this 
large  expenditure  in  the  public  service,  the  latter,  in 
the  conscientious  discharge  of  professional  duty;  and 
the  former,  with  no  other  object  than  the  welfare  of 
the  public,  and  without  any  other  possible  reward  than 
the  good  opinion  of  their  fellow- citizens. 

THE  STRUCTURE  HONESTLY  BUILT. 

I  do  not  make  this  statement  without  a  full  sense  of 
the  responsibility  which  it  involves,  and  I  realize  that 
its  accuracy  will  shortly  be  tested  by  the  report  of  ex- 
perts who  are  now  examining  the  accounts.  But  it 
will  be  found  that  I  have  spoken  the  words  of  truth 
and  soberness.  When  the  ring  absconded,  I  wns  asked 
by  William  C.  Havemeyer,  then  the  Mayor  of  New 
York,  to  become  a  trustee,  in  order  to  investigate  the 
expenditures  and  to  report  as  to  the  propriety  of  going 
on  with  the  w^ork.  This  duty  was  performed  without 
fear  or  favor.  The  methods  by  wiiich  the  ring  pro- 
posed to  benefit  themselves  were  clear  enough,  but  its 
members  fled  before  they  succeeded  in  reimbursing 
themselves  for  the  preliminary  expenses  which  they 
had  defrayed.  With  their  flight  a  new  era  commenced, 
and  during  the  three  years  when  I  acted  as  a  trustee  I 
am  sure  that  no  fraud  was  committed,  and  that  none 
was  possible.  Since  that  date  the  Board  has  been  con- 
trolled by  trustees  some  of  whom  are  thorough  experts 
in  bridge-building,  and  the  others  men  of  such  high 
character  that  the  suggestion  of  malpractice  is  improb- 
able to  absurdity. 


18  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

The  Bridge  has  not  only  been  honestly  built,  but  it 
may  be  safely  asserted  that  it  could  not  now  be  dupli-. 
cated  at  the  same  cost.  Much  money  might,  however, 
have  been  saved  if  the  work  had  not  been  delayed 
through  want  of  means  and  unnecessary  obstacles  in- 
terposed by  mistaken  public  officials.  Moreover,  meas- 
ured by  its  capacity  and  the  limitations  imposed  on  its 
construction  by  its  relation  to  the  interests  of  traffic 
and  navigation,  it  is  the  cheapest  structure  ever  erected 
b}^  the  genius  of  man.  This  will  be  made  evident  by 
a  single  comparison  with  the  Britannia  Tubular  Bridge 
erected  by  Stephenson  over  the  Menai  Stnlats.  He 
adopted  the  tubular  principle  because  he  believed  that 
the  suspension  principle  could  not  be  made  practical 
for  railway  traffic,  although  he  had  to  deal  with  spans 
not  greater  than  470  feet.  He  built  a  structure  that 
contained  10,540  tons  of  iron,  and  cost  £601,000 
sterling,  or  about  $3,000,000.  Fortunately  he  has  left 
a  calculation  on  record  as  to  the  possible  extension  of 
the  tubular  girder,  showing  that  it  would  reach  the 
limits  in  which  it  could  only  bear  its  own  weight  (62,- 
000  tons)  at  1,570  feet.  Now,  for  a  span  of  1,600  feet 
the  Brooklyn  Bridge  contains  but  6,740  tons  of  mate- 
rial, and  will  sustain  seven  times  its  own  weight.  Its 
cost  is  $9,000,000,  whereas  a  tubular  bridge  for  the 
same  span  would  contain  ten  times  the  weight  of  metal, 
and  though  costing  twice  as  much  money,  would  be 
without  the  ability  to  do  any  useful  work. 

Rocbling,  therefore,  solved  the  problem  which  had 
defied  Stephenson,  and  upon  his  design  has  been  built 
a  successful  structure  at  half  the  cost  of  a  tubular 
bridire  that  would  have  fallen  when  loaded  in  actual 
use.  It  is  impossible  to  furnish  any  more  striking  proof 
of  the  genius  which   originated   and  of  the  economy 


ORATION  OF  ABRAM  S.    HEWITT.         19 

which  constructed  this  triumph  of  American  engineer- 
ing. 

We  have  thus  a  monument  to  the  public  spirit  of  the 
two  cities,  created  by  an  expenditure  as  honest  and  as 
economical  as  those  which  gave  us  the  Erie  Canal,  the 
Croton  Aqueduct,  and  the  Central  Park.  If  it  had 
been  otherwise,  it  would  have  been  a  monument  to  the 
eternal  infamy  of  the  trustees  and  of  the  engineers 
under  wliose  supervision  it  has  been  erected;  and  this 
brings  me  to  the  final  consideration  which  I  feel  con- 
strained to  offer  on  this  point. 

During  all  these  years  of  trial  and  false  report,  a  great 
soul  lay  in  the  shadow  of  death,  praying  only  to  stay 
long  enough  for  the  completion  of  the  work  to  which 
he  had  devoted  his  life.  I  say  a  great  soul,  for  in  the 
spring  time  of  youth,  with  friends  and  fortune  at  his 
command,  he  gave  himself  to  his  countr}',  and  for  her 
sake  braved  death  on  many  a  well-fought  battle  field. 
AVhen  restored  to  civil  life,  his  health  was  sacrificed  to 
the  duties  which  had  devolved  upon  him  as  the  inheritor 
of  his  father's  fame  and  the  executor  of  his  father's  plans. 
Living  only  for  honor,  and  freed  from  the  temptations 
of  narrow  means,  how  is  it  conceivable  that  such  a  man 
— whose  approval  was  necessary  to  every  expenditure — 
should,  by  conniving  with  jobbers,  throw  away  more 
than  the  life  which  was  dear  to  him  that  he  might  fulfill 
his  destiny  and  leave  to  his  children  the  heritage  of  a 
good  name  and  the  glory  of  a  grand  achievement  ?  Well 
might  this  suffering  hero  quote  the  words  of  Hyperion  : 
**0h,  I  have  looked  with  wonder  upon  those  who  in 
sorrow  and  privation  and  bodily  discomfort  and  sick- 
ness, which  is  the  shadow  of  death,  have  worked  right 
on  to  the  accomplishment  of  their  great  purposes;  toil- 
ing much,  enduring  much,  fulfilling  much;  and  then, 


20  THE  GREAT  BBIDGE. 

with  shattered  nerves  and  sinews  all  unstrung,  have 
laid  themselves  down  in  the  grave  and  slept  the  sleep  of 
death,  and  the  world  talks  of  them  while  they  sleep! 
And  as  in  the  sun's  eclipse  we  can  behold  the  great  stars 
shining  in  the  heavens,  so  in  this  life-eclipse  have  these 
men  beheld  the  lights  of  the  great  eternity,  burning  sol- 
emnly and  forever!'* 

THE   QUESTION   OF  UNITING  THE   TWO   CITIES. 

And  now  what  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  this  great  ex- 
penditure upon  thehighway  which  has  been  constructed 
between  the  two  cities,  for  which  Dr.  Storrs  and  I  have 
the  honor  to  speak  to-day?  That  Brooklyn  will  gain  in 
numbers  and  in  wealth  with  accelerated  speed  is  a  fore- 
gone conclusion.  Whether  this  gain  shall  in  any  wise  bo 
at  the  expense  of  New  York,  is  a  matter  in  regard  to 
which  the  great  metropolis  does  not  concern  herself. 
Her  citizens  are  content  with  the  knowledge  that  she 
exists  and  grows  with  the  growth  of  the  whole  country, 
of  whose  progress  and  prosperity  she  is  but  the  ex- 
ponent and  the  index.  Will  the  Bridge  lead,  as  has  been 
forcibly  suggested,  and  in  some  quarters  hopefully 
anticipated,  to  the  union  of  the  two  cities  under  oue 
name  and  one  government?  This  suggestion  is  in  part 
sentimental  and  in  part  practical.  So  far  as  the  union 
in  name  is  concerned,  it  is  scarcely  worth  consideration, 
for  in  any  comparison  which  our  national  or  local  pride 
may  institute  between  this  metropolis  and  the  other 
great  cities  of  the  world,  its  environment,  whether  in 
Long  Island,  Staten  Island,  or  New  Jersey,  will  always 
be  included.  In  considering  the  population  of  London, 
no  one  ever  separates  the  city  proper  from  the  sur- 
rounding parts.  Tliey  are  properly  regarded  as  one 
homogeneous  accgregation  of  human  beings. 


ORATION  OF  ABRAM  S,   HEWITT,        21 

It  is  only  when  we  come  to  consider  the  problem  of 
governing  great  masses  that  the  serious  elements  of  the 
question  present  themselves,  and  must  be  determine^ 
before  a  satisfactory^  answer  can  be  given.  The  tendency 
of  modern  civilizatifjn  is  towards  the  concentration  of 
population  in  dense  masses.  This  is  due  to  the  higher 
and  more  diversified  life  which  can  be  secured  by  asso- 
ciation and  co-operation  on  a  large  scale,  affording  not 
merely  greater  comfort  and  often  luxury,  but  actually 
distributing  the  fruits  of  labor  on  a  more  equitable  basis 
than  is  possible  in  sparsely  settled  regions,  and  among 
feeble  communities.  The  great  improvement  of  our  uay 
in  labor-saving  machinery,  and  its  application  to  agri- 
culture, enabled  the  nation  to  be  fed  with  a  less  percent- 
age of  its  total  force  thus  applied,  and  leave  a  large  mar- 
gin of  population  free  to  engage  in  such  other  pursuits 
as  are  best  carried  on  in  large  cities. 

The  disclosures  of  the  last  census  prove  the  truth  of 
this  statement.  At  the  first  census  in  1790  the  popula- 
tion resident  in  cities  was  3.3  per  cent  of  the  total  popu- 
lation. This  percentage  slowly  gained  at  each  succes- 
sive census,  until  in  1840  it  had  reached  8.5  per  cent. 
In  fifty  years  it  had  thus  gained  a  little  over  five  per 
cent.  But  in  1850  it  rose  to  12.5  per  cent,  in  1860  it  wns 
16.1  percent;  in  1870  it  was  20.9  per  cent,  having  in 
this  one  decade  gained  as  much  as  in  the  first  fifty  years 
of  our  political  existence.  In  1880  the  population  resi- 
dent in  cities  was  22.5  per  cent  of  the  whole  population. 

Contemporaneous  with  this  rapid  growth  of  urban 
population,  have  grown  the  complaints  of  corrupt  ad- 
ministration and  bad  municipal  government.  The  out- 
cry may  be  said  to  be  universal,  for  it  comes  from  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic;  and  the  complaints  appenr  to  be 
in  direct  proportion  to  the  size  of  cities.     It  is  obvious, 


23  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

therefore,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  art  of  local  govern- 
ment has  not  kept  pace  with  the  growth  of  population. 
\  am  here  by  your  favor  to  speak  for  the  City  of  New 
York,  and  I  should  be  the  last  person  to  throw  any  dis- 
credit on  its  fair  frame;  but  I  think  I  only  give  voice  to 
the  general  feeling,  when  I  say  that  the  citizens  of  New 
York  are  satisfied  neither  with  the  structure  of  its  gov- 
ernment, nor  with  its  actual  administration,  even  when 
it  is  in  the  hands  of  intelligent  and  honest  officials. 
Dissatisfied  as  w^e  are,  no  man  has  been  able  to  devise 
a  system  which  commends  itself  to  the  general  approval, 
and  it  may  be  asserted  that  the  remedy  is  not  to  be 
found  in  devices  for  any  special  machinery  of  govern- 
ment. Experiments  without  number  have  been  tried, 
and  suggestions  in  infinite  variet}^  have  been  offered, 
but  to-day  no  man  can  say  that  we  have  approached  any 
nearer  to  the  idea  of  good  government  which  is  de- 
manded by  the  intelligence  and  the  wants  of  the  com- 
munity. 

If,  therefore,  New  York  has  not  yet  learned  to  gov- 
ern itself,  how  can  it  be  expected  to  be  better  governed 
by  adding  half  a  million  to  its  population,  and  ?^  great 
territory  to  its  area,  unless  it  be  with  the  idea  that  a 
*' little  leaven  leaveneth  the  w4iole  lump."  Is  Brooklyn 
that  leaven?  And  if  not,  and  if  possibly  '*  the  salt  has 
lost  its  savor,  wherewith  shall  it  be  salted?"  Brooklyn 
is  now  struggling  with  this  problem,  it  remains  to  be 
seen  with  what  success*  but  meanwhile  it  is  idle  to  con- 
sider the  idea  of  getting  rid  of  our  common  evils  by  add- 
ing them  together. 

Besides  it  is  a  fundamental  axiom  in  politics,  approved 
by  the  experience  of  older  countries  as  well  as  of  our 
own,  that  the  sources  of  power  should  never  be  far  le- 
moved  from  those  who  are  to  feel  its  exercise,    It  is  the 


ORATION  OF  ABB  AM  S-  HEWITT.         23 

violation  of  this  principle  which  produces  chronic  revo- 
lution in  France  and  makes  the  British  rule  so  obnox- 
ious to  the  Irish  people.  This  evil  is  happily  avoided 
when  a  natural  boundary  circumscribes  administration 
within  narrow  limits.  While,  therefore,  we  rejoice  to- 
gether at  the  new  bond  between  New  York  and  Brook- 
lyn, we  ought  to  rejoice  the  more  that  it  destroys  none 
of  the  conditions  which  permit  each  city  to  govern  it- 
self, but  rather  urges  them  to  a  generous  rivalry  in  per- 
fecting each  its  own  government,  recognizing  the  truth 
that  there  is  no  true  liberty  without  law,  and  that  eter- 
nal vigilance,  which  is  the  only  safeguard  of  liberty,  can 
best  be  exercised  within  limited  areas. 

THE    TRUE    PRINCIPLE   OF   GOOD    MUNICIPAL    GOVERN- 
MENT. 

It  would  be  a  most  fortunate  conclusion  if  the  com- 
pletion of  this  Bridge  should  arouse  public  attention  to 
the  absolute  necessity  of  good  municipal  government, 
and  recall  the  only  principle  upon  which  it  can  ever  be 
successfully  founded.  There  is  reason  to  hope  that  this 
result  will  follow  because  the  erection  of  this  structure 
shows  how  a  problem,  analagous  to  that  which  con- 
fronts us  in  regard  to  the  city  government,  has  been  met 
and  solved  in  the  domain  of  physical  science. 

The  men  who  controlled  this  enterprise  at  the  outset 
were  not  all  of  the  best  type;  some  of  them,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  public  jobbers.  But  they  knew  that  they 
could  not  build  a  bridge,  although  they  had  no  doubt  of 
their  ability  to  govern  a  city.  They  thereupon  pro- 
ceeded to  organize  the  knowledge  which  existed  as  to 
the  construction  of  bridges,  and  they  held  the  organiza- 
tion thus  created  responsible  for  results.  JSTow,  we 
know  that  it  is  at  least  as  difficult  to  govern  a  city  as  to 


24  THE  GBEAT  BRIDGE. 

build  a  bridge,  and  yet,  as  citizens,  we  have  deliberately 
allowed  the  ignorance  of  the  community  to  be  organized 
for  its  government,  and  then  we  complain  that  it  is  a 
failure.  Until  we  imitate  the  example  of  the  ring,  and 
organize  the  intelligence  of  the  community  for  its  gov- 
ernment, our  complaint  is  childish  and  imreasonable. 
But  we  shall  be  told  that  there  is  no  analogy  between 
building  a  bridge  and  governing  a  city.  Let  us  exam- 
ine this  objection.  A  city  is  made  up  of  infinite  inter- 
ests. They  vary  from  hour  to  hour,  and  conflict  is  the 
law  of  their  being.  Many  of  the  elements  of  social  life 
are  what  methematicians  term  ''variable  of  the  inde- 
pendent order."  The  problem  is  to  reconcile  these  con- 
flicting interests  and  variable  elements  into  one  organi- 
zation which  shall  work  without  jar,  and  allow  each 
citizen  to  pursue  his  calling,  if  it  be  an  honest  one,  in 
peace  and  quiet. 

Now  turn  to  the  Bridge.  It  looks  like  a  motionless 
mass  of  masonry  and  metal;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
is  instinct  with  motion.  There  is  not  a  particle  of  mat- 
ter in  it  which  is  at  rest  even  for  the  minutest  portion  of 
time.  It  is  an  aggregation  of  unstable  elements,  chang- 
ing with  every  change  in  the  temperature,  and  every 
movement  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  The  problem  was, 
out  of  these  unstable  elements,  to  produce  absolute  sta- 
bility, and  it  was  this  problem  which  the  engineers,  the 
organized  intelligence,  had  to  solve,  or  confess  to  inglo- 
rious failure. .  The  problem  has  been  solved.  In  the 
first  construction  of  suspension  bridges  it  was  attempted 
to  check,  repress  and  overcome  their  motion,  and  fail- 
ure resulted.  It  was  then  seen  that  motion  is  the  law 
of  existence  for  suspension  bridges,  and  provision  was 
made  for  its  free  play.  Then  they  became  a  success. 
The  Bridge  before  us  elongates  and  contracts  between 


Or.ATIOX  OF  ABUAZI  G-  HEWITT,        25 

the  extremes  of  temperature  from  14  to  16  inches;  the 
vertical  rise  and  fall  in  the  centre  of  the  main  span 
ranges  between  2  feet  3  inches  and  2  feet  9  inches;  and 
before  the  suspenders  were  attached  to  the  cable  it  ac- 
tually revolved  on  its  own  axis  through  an  arc  of  thirty 
degrees  when  exposed  to  the  sun  shining  upon  it  on  one 
side.  You  do  not  perceive  this  motion,  and  you  would 
know  nothing  about  it  unless  you  watched  the  gauges 
which  record  its  movement. 

Now,  if  our  political  system  were  guided  by  organized 
intelligence,  it  would  not  seek  to  repress  the  free  play  of 
human  interests  and  emotions,  of  human  hopes  and 
fears,  but  would  make  provision  for  their  development 
and  existence,  in  accordance  with  the  higher  law  of  lib- 
erty and  morality.  A  large  portion  of  our  vices  and 
crimes  are  created  either  by  law  or  its  mal-administra- 
tion.  Tliese  laws  exist  because  organized  ignorance, 
like  a  highwayman  with  a  club,  is  permitted  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  wise  legislation  and  honest  administra- 
tion, and  to  demand  satisfaction  from  the  spoils  of  office 
and  the  profits  of  contracts.  Of  this  state  of  affairs  we 
complain,  and  on  great  occasions  the  community  arises 
in  its  wrath  and  visits  summary  punishment  on  the 
offenders  of  the  hour,  and  then  relapses  into  chronic 
grumbling  until  grievances  sufficiently  accumulate  to 
stir  it  again  to  action. 

REMEDIES  FOR  PRESENT  EVILS. 

What  is  the  remedy  for  this  state  of  affairs?  Shall 
there  be  no  more  political  parties,  and  shall  we  shatter 
the  political  machinery  which,  bad  as  it  is,  is  far  better 
than  no  machinery  at  all?  Shall  we  embrace  Nihilism 
as  our  creed,  because  we  have  practical  communism 


26  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

forced  upon  us  as  the  cousequeuce  of  jobbery,  and  the 
imposition  of  unjust  taxes? 

No,  let  us  ratlier  learn  the  lesson  of  the  Bridge.  In- 
stead of  attempting  to  restrict  suffrage,  let  us  tr}^  to  edu- 
cate the  voters;  instead  of  disbanding  parlies,  let  each 
citizen  within  the  party  always  vote,  but  never  for  a 
man  who  is  unfit  to  liold  office.  Thus  parties,  as  well 
as  voters,  will  be  organized  on  the  basis  of  intelli- 
gence. 

But  wiiat  man  is  fit  to  hold  office?  Only  he  who  re- 
gards political  office  as  a  public  trust,  and  not  as  a  pri- 
vate perquisite  to  be  used  for  the  pecuniary  advantage 
of  himself,  or  his  family,  or  even  his  part3^  Is  there  in- 
telligence enough  in  these  cities,  if  thus  organized  within 
the  parties,  to  produce  the  result  which  we  desire? 
Why,  the  overthrow  of  the  Tweed  ring  was  conclusive 
evidence  of  tlie  preponderance  of  public  virtue  in  the 
City  of  New  York.  In  no  other  country  in  the  world, 
and  in  no  other  political  S3^stem  than  one  which  pro- 
vides for  and  secures  universal  suffrage,  would  such  a 
sudden  and  peaceful  revolution  have  been  possible. 
The  demonstration  of  this  fact  was  richly  worth  the 
$25,000,000  or  $30,000,000  which  the  thieves  had  stolen. 
Thereafter,  and  thenceforth,  there  was  no  doubt 
whether  our  city  population,  heterogeneous  as  it  is, 
contains  within  itself  sufficient  virtue  for  its  own  pres- 
ervation. Let  it  never  be  forgotten  that  the  remedy  is 
complete;  that  it  is  ever  present;  that  no  man  ought  to 
be  deprived  of  the  opportunit}^  of  its  exercise,  and  that, 
if  it  be  exercised,  the  will  of  the  community  can  never 
be  paralyzed.  Our  safety  and  our  success  rest  on  the 
ballot  in  the  hands  of  freemen  at  the  polls,  deliberately 
deposited,  never  for  an  unworthj^  man,  but  always  with 
a  profound  sense  of  the  responsibility  which  should 


ORATION  OF  ABEAM  S.   HEWITT.         27 

govern  every  citizen  in  tlie  exercise  of  this  fundamental 
right. 

If  the  lesson  of  the  Bridge,  which  I  have  thus  sought 
to  enforce,  shall  revive  the  confidence  of  the  people  in 
their  own  power,  and  induce  them  to  use  it  practically 
for  the  election  of  good  men  to  office,  then,  indeed, 
will  its  completion  be  a  public  blessing,  worthy  of  the 
new  era  of  industrial  development  in  which  it  is  our 
fortunate  lot  to  live. 

Great,  indeed,  has  been  our  national  progress.  Per- 
haps w^e  who  belong  to  a  commercial  community  do  not 
fully  realize  its  significance  and  promise.  We  buy  and 
sell  stocks,  without  stopping  to  think  that  they  repre- 
sent the  most  astonishing  achievements  of  enterprise 
and  skill,  in  the  magical  extension  of  our  vast  railw^ay 
system;  we  speculate  in  wheat,  without  reflecting  on  the 
stupendous  fact  that  the  plains  of  Dakota  and  Califor- 
nia are  feeding  hungry  mouths  in  Europe;  we  hear  that 
the  Treasmy  has  made  a  call  for  bonds,  and  forget  that 
the  rapid  extinction  of  our  national  debt  is  a  proof  of 
our  prosperity  and  patriotism,  as  wonderful  to  the 
world  as  was  the  power  we  exhibited  in  the  struggle 
wdiicli  left  that  apparently  crushing  burden  upon  us. 
If,  then,  we  deal  successfully  wath  the  evils  which 
threaten  our  political  life,  who  can  predict  the  limits  of 
our  future  w^ealth  and  glory — wealth  that  shall  enrich 
all;  glory  that  shall  be  no  selfish  heritage,  but  the  bless- 
ing of  mankind?  Beyond  all  legends  of  oriental  treas- 
ure, beyond  all  dreams  of  the  golden  age,  will  be  the 
splendor,  and  majesty,  and  happiness  of  the  free  people 
dwelling  upon  this  fair  domain,  if,  as  may  be  fairly  an- 
ticipated, they  shall  then  have  learned  how  to  make 
equitable  distribution  among  themselves  of  the  fruits  of 


38  THE  GREAT  BlUDGE. 

their  common  labor.     As  our  own  Bryant  sang  as  long 
ago  as  1821 : 

"  Here  the  free  spirit  of  mankind  at  length 
Throws  its  last  fetters  off;  and  who  shall  place 
A  limit  to  the  giant's  untamed  strength, 
Or  curb  its  swiftness  in  the  forward  race ! 
Far,  like  the  comet's  way  through  infinite  space, 
Stretches  the  long  untraveled  path  of  light 
Into  the  depths  of  ages ;  we  may  trace 
Distant,  the  brightening  glory  of  its  flight, 
'Till  the  receding  rays  are  lost  to  human  sight." 

At  the  ocean  gateway  of  such  a  nation  well  may  stand 
the  stately  figure  of  '*  Liberty  Enlightening  the  World;" 
and,  in  hope  and  faith,  as  well  as  gratitude,  we  write 
upon  the  towers  of  our  beautiful  Bridge,  to  be  illumi- 
nated by  her  electric  ray,  the  words  of  exultation,  Finis 
coronat  opus. 


ORATION  OF  THE  REV.  DR.  R.  S.  STORRS. 

Mr.  Chairman,  Fellow-Citizens:  It  can  surprise 
no  one  that  we  celebrate  the  completion  of  this  great 
work  in  which  lines  of  delicate  and  aerial  grace  are 
combined  with  a  strength  more  enduring  than  of  mar- 
ble, and  the  w^oven  wires  prolong  to  these  heights  the 
metropolitan  avenues.  After  delays  which  have  often 
disturbed  the  popular  patience,  and  have  oftener  disap- 
pointed the  hopes  of  the  builders,  we  gratefully  wel- 
come this  superb  consummation;  rejoicing  to  know 
that  "the  silver  streak,"  which  so  long  has  divided  this 
cit}"  from  tlie  continent,  is  conquered  henceforth  by  the 
silver  band  stretching  above  it,  careless  alike  of  the 
wind  and  tide,  of  ice  and  fog,  of  current  and  of  calm. 


ORATION  OF  BEV.   DP.    STORES,  29 

To  the  mind  which  for  fourteen  years  has  watched, 
guided  and  governed  the  work,  looking  out  upon  it 
through  ph^^sical  organs  almost  fatrtlly  smitten  in  its 
prosecution,  we  bring  our  eager  and  unanimous  tribute 
of  honor  and  applause.  He  who  took  up,  elaborated 
and  has  brought  to  fulfillment  the  plans  of  the  father, 
whose  own  life  had  been  sacrificed  in  their  futherancc, 
has  builded  to  both  the  noblest  memorial.  He  may 
with  truth  have  said  heretofore,  as  the  furnaces  have 
glowed  from  which  this  welded  network-  has  come,  in 
the  words  of  Schiller's  ''Lay  of  the  Bell:" 

•  "  Deep  hid  within  the  nether  cell 

What  force  with  fire  is  moulding  thus, 
In  yonder  airy  towers  shall  dwell, 
And  witness  wide  and  far  of  us." 

He  may  at  this  hour  add  for  himself  the  lines  which 
the  poet  hears  from  the  lips  of  his  house-master: 

"  My  house  is  built  upon  a  rock, 
And  sees  unmoved  the  stormy  shock 
Of  waves  that  fret  below." 

It  must  be  a  superlative  moment  in  life  when  one 
stands  on  a  structure  as  majestic  as  this,  which  was  at 
first  a  mere  thought  in  the  brain,  which  was  afterward 
a  plan  on  the  paper,  and  which  has  been  transported 
hither,  from  quarry  and  mine,  from  woodyard  and 
workshop,  on  the  point  of  his  pencil!  He  would  be 
first  to  acknowledge,  also,  if  he  were  speaking,  the  in- 
telligent, faithful,  indefatigable  service,  rendered  in 
execution  of  his  plans,  by  those  who  have  been  associ- 
ated with  him,  as  assistant  engineers,  as  master  mechan- 
ics, or  as  trained,  trusted  and  experienced  workmen. 
On  their  knowledge  and  vigilance,  their  practiced  skill 
and  patient  fidelity,  the  work,  of  necessity,  had  largely 
depended  for  its  completed  grace  and  strength.     They 


30  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

have  ^Yrougllt  the  zealous  labor  of  years  into  all  parts  of 
it;  and  it  will  bear  to  them  hereafter,  as  it  does  to-day, 
most  honorable  witness. 

Some  of  our  honored  fellow-citizens,  who  have  had 
distinguished  part  in  this  enterprise,  are  no  more  here 
to  share  our  festivities.  Mr.  John  Prentice,  for  3'ears 
the  Treasurer  of  the  Board,  wise  in  counsel,  of  a  liberal 
3'et  a  w\atchful  economy,  of  incorruptible  integrity, 
passed  from  the  earth  two  years  ago;  but  to  those  who 
knew  him  his  memory  is  as  fresh  as  the  verdure  above 
his  grave  at  Greenwood.  More  lately,  one  who  had 
been  from  the  outset  associated  with  what  to  manj-  ap- 
peared this  visionary  plan,  to  whose  capacity  and  expe- 
rience, his  legal  skill,  his  legislative  influence,  his  social 
distinction,  the  work  has  been  always  largely  indebted, 
and  who  was  for  years  the  President  of  this  Board,  has 
followed  into  the  silent  land.  It  is  a  grief  to  all  who 
know  him  that  he  is  not  here  to  see  the  consummation 
of  labors  and  plans  which  for  years  had  occupied  his 
life.  But  his  face  and  figure  are  before  us,  almost  as 
distinctly  as  if  he  w^ere  present;  and  it  will  be  only  the 
dullest  forgetfulness  which  will  ever  cease  to  connect 
with  this  Bridge  the  name  of  the  accomplished  scholar, 
the  experienced  diplomatist,  the  untiring  worker,  the 
cordial  and  ever-helpful  friend,  Mr.  Henry  C.  Murphy. 

But  others  remain,  to  whom  the  work  has  brought 
its  burdens,  of  labor,  care,  and  long  solicitude,  some- 
times, no  doubt,  of  a  public  criticism  whose  imperious 
sharpness  they  may  have  felt,  but  who  have  followed 
their  plans  to  completion  without  wavering  or  pause, 
who  have  indeed  expanded  those  plans  as  the  progress 
of  the  work  suggested  enlargement,  and  who  to-day 
enter  the  reward  which  belongs  to  those  v/ho,  after  pro- 
moting a  magnificent  enterprise,  see  it  accomplished. 


OBATION  OF  REV.   DR.   STORRS.  31 

Among  them  are  two  who  were  associated  with  it  at 
the  beginniog,  aud  Avho  Iiave  continued  so  associated 
from  that  day  to  this:  Mr.  William  C.  Kingsle}^  Mr. 
James  S.  T.  Stranahan.  Tlie  judgment  cannot  be  mis- 
taken which  affirms  that  to  tlicse  men,  more  than  to  any 
other  of  our  citizens  remaining  among  us,  the  prosecu- 
tion of  this  work  to  its  crowning  success  is  properly 
ascribed.  They  are  the  true  orators  of  the  hour.  We 
may  praise,  but  they  have  builded.  On  the  tenacity  of 
their  purpose,  of  which  that  of  these  combining  wires 
only  presents  the  physical  image — on  the  lift  of  their 
wills,  stronger  than  of  these  consenting  cables — the 
immense  structure  has  risen  to  its  place.  ISTo  grander 
w^ork  has  it  been  given  to  men  to  do  for  the  city  which 
will  feel  the  unfailing  impulse  of  their  foresight  and 
courage,  their  wisdom  in  counsel,  and  their  resolute 
service,  to  the  end  of  its  history. 

Mr.  William  Marshall  and  General  Henry  W.  Slocura 
were  also  connected  with  the  work  at  the  outset,  and, 
with  intervals  in  the  period  of  their  service,  have  given 
it  important  assistance  to  the  end;  while  others  are  with 
us  who  have  joined  with  intelligence,  enthusiasm,  aud 
helpfulness,  in  the  councils  of  the  Board,  at  different 
times.  We  rejoice  in  the  presence  of  all  those  who  ear- 
lier or  later  have  taken  part  in  the  plans,  at  once  vast 
and  minute,  wiiich  now  are  realized.  We  offer  them 
the  tribute  of  our  admiring  and  grateful  esteem.  We 
trust  that  their  remembrance  of  the  work  they  have 
accomplished,  and  their  personal  experience  of  its  mani' 
fold  benefits,  may  continue  through  many  happy  years. 
And  we  congratulate  ourselves,  as  well  as  them,  that 
the  city  will  keep  the  memorial  of  them,  not  in  yonder 
tablets  alone,  but  in  the  great  fabric  above  which  those 
stand,  while  stone  and  steel  retain  their  strength. 


82  THE  GBEAT  BRIDGE, 


THE  BRIDGE  AS   A  POPULAR  ACHIEVEMENT. 

But  after  all,  the  real  builder  of  this  surpassing  acd 
significant  structure  has  been  the  people;  whose  watch- 
fulness of  its  progress  has  been  constant;  whose  desire 
for  its  benefits  has  been  the  incentive  behind  its  plans; 
by  whom  its  treasury  has  been  supplied;  whose  exultant 
gladness  now  welcomes  its  success.  The  people  of  New 
York  have  illustrated  anew  their  magnanimous  spirit  in 
cheerfully  supplying  their  share  of  the  cost,  though  not 
anticipating  from  such  large  outlay  direct  reliefs  and 
signal  advantages.  The  people  of  Brooklyn  have  shown 
at  least  an  intelligent,  intrepid,  and  far-sighted  sagacity, 
in  readil}^  accepting  the  immediate  burdens  in  expecta- 
tion of  future  returns. 

Such  a  popular  achievement  is  one  to  be  proud  of.  St. 
Petersburgli  could  be  commenced  180  years  ago — almost 
to  a  day,  on  May  27, 1703 — and  could  afterward  be  built 
by  the  will  of  an  autocrat,  to  give  him  a  new  centre  of 
empire,  with  a  nearer  outlook  over  Europe;  its  palaces 
rising  on  artificial  foundations  which  it  cost,  it  is  said,  a 
hundred  thousand  lives  in  the  first  year  to  lay.  Paris 
could  be  reconstructed  twenty-five  years  ago,  by  the 
mandate  of  an  Emperor  determined  to  make  it  more 
beautiful  than  before,  to  open  new  avenues  for  guns  and 
troops,  to  give  to  its  laborers,  who  might  become 
troublesome,  desired  occupation.  But  not  only  have 
these  cities  of  ours  been  founded,  built,  reconstructed 
by  the  people,  but  this  charming  and  mighty  avenue  in 
the  air,  by  which  they  are  henceforth  rebuilt  into  one, 
is  to  the  people's  honor  and  praise.  It  shows  what  mul- 
titudes, democratically  organized,  can  do  if  they  will. 
It  will  show  to  those  who  shall  succeed  us  to  what  larger 
Dcss  of  enterprise,   what    patience  of    purpose,  what 


ORATION  OF  BEV.   DR.  STORRS,  33 

liberal  wisdom,  the  populations  now  ruling  these  asso- 
ciated cities  were  competent  in  their  time.  It  takes  the 
aspect,  as  so  regarded,  of  a  durable  monument  to  demo- 
cracy itself. 

We  congratulate  the  Mayors  of  both  the  cities,  and 
their  associates  in  the  government  of  them,  on  the  pub- 
lic spirit  manifested  by  both,  on  the  ample  opportuni- 
ties offered  to  each,  and  on  those  intimate  alliances  be- 
tween them  which  are  a  source  of  happiness  to  both, 
and  which  are  almost  certainly  prophetic  of  an  organic 
union  to  be  realized  hereafter.  And  we  trust  that  the 
crosses,  encircled  by  the  laurel  wreath  on  the  original 
seal  of  New- Amsterdam,  with  the  Dutch  legend  of  this 
city,  "Union  makes  strength,"  may  continue  to  de- 
scribe them,  whether  or  not  stamped  upon  parchments 
and  blazoned  on  banners,  as  long  as  human  eyes  shall 
see  them. 

The  work  now  completed  is  of  interest  to  both  cities, 
and  its  enduring  and  multiplying  benefits  will  be  found, 
we  are  confident,  to  be  common,  not  local.  We  who 
have  made  and  steadfastly  kept  our  homes  in  Brooklyn, 
and  who  are  fond  and  proud  of  the  city — for  its  fresh, 
bracing  and  healthful  air  and  the  brilliant  out-stretch  of 
sea  and  land  which  opens  from  the  Heights,  for  its 
scores  of  thousands  of  prosperous  homes,  for  its  un- 
surpassed schools,  its  co-operating  churches,  the  social 
temper  which  pervades  it,  the  independence  and  enter- 
prise of  its  journals,  and  the  local  enthusiasm  which  they 
fruitfully  foster;  for  its  general  liberality  and  the  occa- 
sional splendid  examples  of  individual  munificence 
wdiich  have  given  it  fame,  for  its  recent  but  energetic 
institutions  of  literature,  art  and  a  noble  philanthropy, 
and  for  the  stimulating  enterprise  and  culture  of  the 
young  life  which  is  coming  to  command  in  it— we  have 


34  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

obvious  reason  to  rejoice  in  the  work  which  brings  us 
into  nearer  connection  with  all  that  is  delightful  and 
all  that  is  enriching  in  the  metropolis;  and  with  that 
diverging  system  of  railways,  overspreading  the  con- 
tinent, which  has  in  the  commercial  capital  its  natural 
centre  of  radiation. 

We  have  no  word  of  criticism  to  speak,  only  words 
of  most  henit}^  admiration,  for  the  safe  and  speedy 
water  service  on  the  lines  of  the  ferries,  which  has 
given  us  heretofore  such  easy  transportation  from  city 
to  city,  without  delays  that  were  not  unavoidable,  and 
with  a  remarkable  exemption  from  disaster.  So  far  as 
human  carefulness  and  skill  could  assure  safety  and 
speed,  in  the  midst  of  conditions  unfriendly  to  both,  the 
management  of  these  ferries  has  been  peerless,  their 
success  unsurpassed.  To  them  is  due,  in  largest  mea- 
sure, the  rapid  growth  already  here  realized.  They 
have  formed  the  indispensable  arteries  of  supply  and 
transmission  through  which  the  circulating  life-blood 
has  flowed;  and  their  ministry  to  this  city  has  been 
constant  and  vital.  But  we  confess  ourselves  glad  to 
reach  with  surer  certainty,  and  a  greater  rapidity,  the 
libraries  and  galleries,  the  churches  and  the  homes,  as 
well  as  the  resorts  of  business  and  of  pleasure,  with 
which  we  are  now  in  instant  connection;  and  the 
horizon  widens  around  us  as  we  touch  with  more  im- 
mediate  contact  the  lines  of  travel  which  open  hence  to 
the  edges  of  the  continent. 

If  we  have  not  as  much  to  offer  in  immediate  return, 
we  liave  at  least  a  broad  expanse  of  uncovered  acres 
within  the  cit}^  for  the  easy  occupation  of  those  who 
wish  homes,  either  modest  or  splendid,  or  who  shall 
wdsh  such  as  the  growth  of  the  metropolis  multiplies 
its  population  into  the  millions,  crowds  its  roofs  higher 


ORATIOy  OF  REV.   DR.   STGRRS.  So 

towards  the  stars,  and  make  a  productive  silver  mine 
of  each  several  house-lot.  And  to  those  who  visit  us 
but  at  intervals  we  can  open  not  onl}^  yonder  park,  set 
like  an  emerald  in  the  great  circular  sweep  of  our 
boundaries  from  the  waters  of  the  Narrows  to  the 
waters  of  the  Sound,  but  also  their  readiest  approach  to 
the  ocean.  The  capital  and  the  sea  are  henceforth 
brought  to  nearer  neighborhood.  Long  Island  bays, 
and  brooks,  and  beaches,  are  within  readier  reach  of  the 
town.  The  winds  that  have  touched  no  other  land 
this  side  of  Cuba  are  more  accessible  to  those  who  seek 
their  tonic  breath.  The  long  roll  of  the  surf  on  the 
shore  breaks  closer  than  before  to  office  and  mansion, 
and  to  tenement  chamber. 

The  benefits  will  therefore  be  reciprocal  which  pass 
back  and  forth  across  this  lovely  and  stately  framework; 
and  both  cities  will  rejoice,  we  gladly  hope,  in  the  pa- 
tience and  labor,  the  disciplined  skill,  the  large  expen- 
diture, of  which  it  is  the  trophy  and  fruit.  New  York 
has  now^  the  unique  opportunity  to  widen  its  boundar- 
ies to  the  sea;  and  around  its  brilliant  civic  shield, 
more  stately  and  manifold  than  that  of  Achilles,  b^^  the 
aid  of  those  who  have  wrought  already  these  twisted 
bracelets  and  clasping  cables,  to  set  the  glowing  and 
spacious  margin  of  the  resounding  ocean-stream. 

AN   INCENTIVE   TO   OTHER   GREAT  ENTERPRISES.         ' 

This  work  is  important,  too,  we  cannot  but  feel,  in 
wider  relations;  for  what  it  signifies  as  for  what  it  se- 
cures, and  for  all  that  it  promises.  Itself  a  rep'esenta- 
tive  product  and  part  of  the  new  civilization,  one  stand- 
ing on  it  finds  an  outlook  from  it  of  larger  circumfer- 
ence than  that  of  these  cities.  Every  enterprise  like 
this,  successfully  accomplished,  becomes  an  incentive 


36  TEE  GEE  AT  BRIDGE. 

to  others  like  it.  It  leeds  on  to  such,  and  supplies  in- 
cessant encouragement  to  them.  We  may  not  know, 
or  probably  conjecture,  what  those  are  to  be,  in  the  city 
or  the  State  in  the  years  that  shall  come.  But  what- 
ever they  may  be,  for  the  more  complete  equipment  of 
either  with  conditions  of  happiness  and  the  instruments 
of  progress,  they  will  all  take  an  impulse  from  that 
which  here  has  been  accomplished.  Such  atrophy  of 
triumph  over  an  original  obstacle  of  nature,  will  not 
conduce  to  sleep  in  others,  and  whatever  is  needed  of 
material  improvement,  throughout  the  State  of  which  it 
is  our  pride  to  be  citizens,  will  be  only  more  surely  and 
speedily  supplied  because  of  this  impressive  success. 

It  is,  therefore,  most  fitting  to  our  festival  that  we  are 
permitted  to  welcome  to  it  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
State,  with  those  representing  its  different  regions  in  the 
legislative  councils.  We  rejoice  to  remember  that  the 
work  before  us  has  been  assisted  by  the  favoring  action 
of  those  heretofore  in  authority  in  the  State;  and  we 
trust  that  to  those  now  holding  high  offices  in  it,  who 
are  present  to-day,  the  occasion  will  be  one  of  pleasant 
experience,  and  of  enlarged  and  reinforced  expecta- 
tion. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  extravagant  to  say  that  the  future  of 
the  country  opens  before  us,  as  we  see  what  skill  and 
will  can  do  to  overleap  obstacles,  and  make  nature  sub- 
servient to  human  designs.  So  we  gladly  welcome  these 
eminent  men  from  other  States;  while  the  presence  of 
the  Executive  head  of  the  Nation,  and  of  some  of  tlie 
members  of  his  Cabinet,  is  appropriate  to  the  time  as  it 
is  an  occasion  of  sincere  and  profound  gratification  to 
us  all.  Without  the  concurrence  of  the  National  Gov- 
ernment, this  structure,  though  primarily  of  local  rela- 
tions, as  reaching  across  these  navigable  waters,  could 


OIIATION  OF  REV.   BE.   STORRS.  37 

not  have  been  built.  We  feel  assured  that  those  hon- 
orably representing  that  Government,  who  favor  its 
completion  with  their  attendance,  and  in  whose  pres- 
ence political  differences  are  forgotten,  will  share  with 
us  in  the  joyful  pride  with  which  we  regard  it,  and  in 
the  inspiring  anticipation  that  the  physical  apparatus  of 
civilization  in  the  land  is  to  take  fresh  iftipu'se,  not  im- 
pediment or  hindrance,  from  that  which  here  has  been 
effected.  The  day  seems  brought  distinctly  nearer 
when  the  Nation,  equipped  with  the  latest  implements 
furnished  by  science,  shall  master  and  use  as  never  be- 
fore its  rich  domain. 

Not  only  the  modern  spirit  is  here,  even  in  eminence, 
which  dares  great  effort  for  great  advantage,  but  the 
chiefest  of  modern  instruments  is  here,  which  is  the 
ancient  intractable  iron,  transfigured  into  steel.  It  was 
a  sign,  and  even  a  measure  of  ancient  degeneracy,  when 
the  age  of  gold  w^as  followed  if  not  forgotten  by  one  of 
iron.  Decadence  of  arts,  of  learnings  and  laws,  of  so- 
ciety itself,  was  implied  in  the  fact.  The  more  intrepid 
intelligence,  the  more  versatile  energ}^  amid  which 
we  live  have  achieved  the  success  of  combining  the 
two:  so  that  while  it  is  true,  now  as  of  old,  that  *'  No 
mattock  plunges  a  golden  edge  into  the  ground,  and  no 
nail  drives  a  silver  point  into  the  plank,"  it  is  also  true 
that  under  the  stimulus  of  the  larger  expenditure  which 
the  added  supplies  of  gold  make  possible,  the  duller 
metal  has  taken  a  fineness,  a  brightness  and  hardness, 
and  a  tensile  strength  before  unfamiliar. 

Tlie  iron,  as  of  old,  quarries  the  gold,  and  cuts 
it  out  from  river-bed  and  from  rock.  But  under  the 
alchemy  which  gold  applies  the  iron  takes  nobler 
properties  upon  it.  Converted  into  steel  in  masses 
that    would    lately    have    staggered    men's    thoughts, 


38  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

it  becomes  tlie  kingliest  instrumGnt  of  peoples  for  sub- 
duing the  earth.  Things  dainty  and  things  mighty  are 
fashioned  from  it  iu  equal  abundance;  gun-carriage  and 
cannon,  with  the  solid  platforms  on  which  they  rest, 
the  largest  castings  and  heaviest  plates,  as  well  as 
wheel,  axle  and  rail,  as  well  as  screw,  or  file  or  saw.  It 
is  shaped  into  the  hulls  of  ships.  It  is  built  alike  into 
column  and  truss,  balcony,  roof,  and  springing  dom.e. 
To  the  loom  and  the  press,  and  the  boiler  from  whose 
fierce  and  untiring  heart  their  force  is  supplied  it  is 
equally  apt;  while  as  drawn  into  delicate  wires  it  is 
coiled  into  springs,  woven  into  gauze,  sharpened  into 
needles  and  twisted  into  ropes;  it  is  made  to  yield  music 
in  all  our  homes;  electric  currents  are  sent  upon  it 
along  our  streets,  around  the  world.  It  enables  us  to 
talk  with  correspondents  afar;  or  it  is  knit,  as  before 
our  eyes,  into  the  new  and  noble  causeways  of  pleasure 
and  of  commerce. 

I  hardly  think  that  we  3'et  appreciate  the  signification 
of  this  change  which  has  passed  upon  iron.  It  is  the  in- 
dustrial victory  of  the  century,  not  to  have  heaped  the 
extracted  gold  in  higher  piles,  or  to  have  crowded  the 
bursting  vaults  with  accumulated  silver,  but  to  have 
conferred,  by  the  sovereign  touch  of  scientific  invention, 
flexibility,  grace,  variety  of  use,  and  almost  ethereal 
and  spiritual  virtue,  on  this  stubbornest  of  metals. 
The  indications  of  physical  achievements  iu  the  future, 
thus  inaugurated,  outrun  the  compass  of  human 
thought. 

Two  bridges  lie  near  each  other  across  the  historical 
stream  of  the  Moldau,  under  the  shadow  of  the  ancient 
and  haughty  palace  at  Prague:  the  one,  tlie  picturesque 
bridge  of  St.  iSTcpomuk,  patron  of  bridges  throughor.t 
Bohemia,  of  massive  stone,  which  occupied  a  century 


ORATION  OF  REV.   BR.  STORRS.  39 

and  a  half  in  its  erection,  and  was  finished  almost  four 
centuries  ago;  with  stately  statues  along  its  sides,  with 
a  superb  monument  at  its  end,  sustaining  symbolic  and 
portrait  figures;  the  other,  an  iron  suspension-bridge, 
built  and  finished  in  three  years,  a  half  century  since, 
and  singularly  contrasting,  in  its  lightness  and  grace, 
tlie  sombre  solidity  of  the  first.  It  is  impossible  to  look 
upon  the  two  without  feeling  how  distinctly  the  dif- 
ferent ages  to  which  they  belong  are  indicated  by  them, 
and  how  the  ceremonial  and  military  character  of  the 
centuries  that  are  past  has  been  superseded  by  the  rapid 
and  practical  spirit  of  commerce. 

But  the  modern  bridge  is  there,  a  small  one,  and  rests 
at  the  centre  on  an  island  and  a  pier.  The  structure 
before  us,  the  largest  of  its  class  as  yet  in  the  world,  in 
its  swifter,  more  graceful,  and  more  daring  leap,  from 
bank  to  bank  across  the  tides  of  this  arm  of  the  sea,  not 
only  illustrates  the  bolder  temper  which  is  natural  here, 
the  readiness  to  attempt  unparalleled  w^orks,  the  disdain 
of  difficulties  in  unfaltering  reliance  on  exact  calcula- 
tion, but  in  the  material  out  of  which  it  is  wrought,  it 
shows  the  new  supremacy  of  man  over  the  metal  which 
in  former  time  he  scarcely  could  use  save  lor  rude  and 
coarse  implements.  The  steel  of  the  blades  of  Damas- 
cus or  Toledo  is  not  here  needed;  nor  that  of  the  chisel, 
the  knife-blade,  the  w^atch  spring,  or  the  surgical  instru- 
ment. But  the  steel  of  the  medioBval  lance-head  or 
sabre  was  hardly  finer  than  that  which  is  here  built  into 
a  castle,  which  the  sea  cannot  shake,  whose  binding 
cement  the  rains  cannot  loosen,  and  before  whose  unde- 
caying  parapets  open  fairer  visions  of  island  and  town, 
of  earth,  water  and  sky,  than  from  any  fortress  along 
the  Rhine.     There  is  inexhaustible  promise  in  the  fact. 


40  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE, 

THE  TYPE  OF  A  GREAT  SYSTEM  AND  THE  SYMBOL  OF 

PEACE. 

Of  course,  too,  tliere  is  impressively  before  us — in- 
stalled as  on  this  fair  and  brilliant  civic  throne — that 
desire  for  swiftest  inter -communication  between  towns 
and  districts  divided  from  each  other,  which  belongs  to 
our  times,  and  w^hicli  is  to  be  an  energetic,  enduriug 
and  salutary  force  in  moulding  the  nation.  The  years 
are  not  distant  in  which  separated  communities  regarded 
each  other  with  aversion  and  distrust,  and  the  effort 
was  mutual  to  raise  barriers  between  them,  not  to  unite 
them  in  closer  alliance.  Now,  the  traffic  of  one  is 
vitally  dependent  on  the  industries  of  another;  the 
counting-room  in  the  one  has  the  factory  or  the  ware- 
house tributary  to  it  established  in  the  other;  and  the 
demand  is  imperative  that  the  two  be  linked,  by  all 
possible  mechuisms,  in  a  union  as  complete  as  if  no 
chasm  had  opened  between  them.  So  these  cities  are 
henceforth  united;  and  so  all  cities,  which  may  minister 
to  each  other,  are  bound  more  and  more  in  intimate 
combinations.  Santa  Fe,  which  soon  celebrates  the 
third  of  a  millennium  since  its  foundation,  reaches 
out  its  connections  toward  the  newest  log-city  in 
Washington  Territory ;  and  the  oldest  towns  upon  our 
seaboard  find  allies  in  those  that  have  risen  like  exhtila- 
tions  along  the  western  lakes  and  rivers. 

This  mighty  and  symmetrical  band  before  us  seems  to 
stand  as  the  type  of  all  that  immeasurable  communicat- 
ing system  wiiich  is  more  completely  with  every  year 
to  inter-link  cities,  to  confederate  States,  to  make  one 
country  of  our  distributed  imperial  domain,  and  to  weave 
its  history  into  a  vast  harmonious  contexture,  as  mes- 
sages fly  instantaneously  across  it,  and  the  rapid  trains 
rush  back  and  forth,  like  shuttles  upon  a  mighty  loomo 


OBATION  BY  REV,   DR.   STORRS.         41 

It  is  not  fanciful,  either,  to  feel  that  in  all  its  history, 
and  in  what  is  peculiar  in  its  constitution,  it  becomes  a 
noble  visible  symbol  of  that  benign  peace,  amid  which 
its  towers  and  roadway  have  risen,  and  which  we  trust 
it  may  long  continue  to  signalize  and  to  share.  We 
may  look  at  this  moment  on  the  site  of  the  shipyard 
from  which  in  March,  1862,  twenty-one  years  ago,  went 
forth  the  unmasted  and  raft-like  Monitor,  with  its  flat 
decks,  its  low  bulwarks,  its  guarded  mechanism,  its 
heavy  armament,  and  its  impenetrable  revolving  turret, 
to  that  near  battle  with  the  Merrimac  on  wdiich,  as  it 
seemed  to  us  at  the  time,  the  destiny  of  the  nation  was 
perilously  poised.  The  material  of  which  the  ship  was 
wrought  was  largely  that  wdiich  is  built  in  beauty  into 
this  luxurious  lofty  fabric.  But  no  contrast  could  be 
greater,  among  the  works  of  human  genius,  than  be- 
tween the  compact  and  rigid  solidity  into  which  the 
iron  had  there  been  forged  and  wedged  and  rammed, 
and  these  waving  and  graceful  curves,  swinging  down- 
w^ard  and  up,  almost  like  blossoming  festooned  vines 
along  the  perfumed  Italian  lanes,  this  alluring  roadw^^y, 
resting  on  towers  which  rise  like  those  of  ancient  cathe- 
drals, this  lacework  of  threads,  interweaving  their  sepa- 
rate delicate  strengths  into  the  complex  solidity  of  the 
whole. 

The  ship  was  for  war,  and  the  bridge  is  for  peace,  the 
product  of  it;  almost,  one  might  say,  its  express  palpa- 
ble  emblem;  in  its  harmony  of  proportions,  its  dainty 
elegance,  its  advantages  for  all  and  its  ample  con- 
venience. The  deadly  raft,  floating  level  with  the 
weaves,  w^as  related  to  this  etherial  structure,  whose 
finest  curves  are  wrought  in  the  strength  of  toughest 
steel.  We  could  not  have  had  this,  except  for  that  un- 
sightl}^  craft,  which  at  first  refused  to  be  steered,  which 


42  THE  GREAT  BBIBGE. 

bumped  headlong  against  our  piers,  wliicli  almost  sank 
\vhile  being  towed  to  the  field  of  its  fame,  and  which  at 
last,  when  its  mission  was  fulfilled,  found  its  grave  in 
the  deep  over  whose  w^aters,  and  near  their  line,  its 
shattering  lightnings  had  been  shot.  This  structure  will 
stand,  we  fondly  trust,  for  generations  to  come,  even 
for  centuries,  while  metal  and  granite  retain  their 
coherence;  not  only  emitting,  when  the  wind  surges  or 
plays  through  its  network,  that  serial  music  of  which 
it  is  the  mighty  harp,  but  representing  to  every  eye  the 
manifold  bonds  of  interest  and  affection,  of  sympathy 
and  purpose,  of  common  political  faith  and  hope,  over 
and  from  whose  mightier  chords  shall  rise  the  living 
and  unmatched  harmonies  of  continental  gladness  and 
praise. 

While  no  man,  therefore,  can  measure  In  thought  the 
vast  processions — 40,000,000  a  year,  it  already  is  com- 
puted— which  shall  pass  back  and  forth  across  this  path- 
way, or  shall  pause  on  its  summit  to  survey  the  vast  and 
bright  panorama,  to  greet  the  break  of  summer  morn- 
ing, or  watch  the  pageant  of  closing  day,  we  may  hope 
that  the  one  use  to  which  it  never  will  need  to  be  put  is 
that  of  war;  that  the  one  tramp  not  to  be  heard  on  it  is 
that  of  soldiers  marching  to  battle;  that  the  only  wheels 
whose  roll  it  shall  not  be  called  to  echo  are  the  wheels 
of  the  tumbrils  of  troops  and  artillery.  Born  of  peace 
and  signifying  peace,  may  its  mission  of  peace  be  un- 
interrupted till  its  strong  towers  and  cables  fail. 

If  such  expectations  shall  be  fulfilled,  of  mechanical 
invention  ever-advancing,  of  cities  and  States  linked 
more  closely,  of  beneficent  peace  assured  to  all,  it  is  im- 
possible to  assign  any  limit  to  the  coming  expansion 
and  opuhmce  of  these  cities,  or  to  the  influence  v>diich 
they  shall  exert  on  the  developing  liie  of  the  country. 


OBATION  BY  BEV.   DR.   STORRS.  43 


THE  MAKVELOUS  DEVELOPMENT   OF   CITIES. 

Cities  Lave  often,  in  other  times,  been  created  by  war; 
as  men  were  crowded  together  in  them  the  better  to 
escape  the  whirls  of  strife  hj  which  the  unwalled  dis- 
tricts were  ravaged,  or  the  more  effectively  to  combine 
their  force  against  threatening  foes.  And  it  is  a  strik- 
ing suggestion  of  history  that  to  the  frightful  ravages  of 
the  Hans — swarthy,  ill-shaped,  ferocious,  destroying — 
may  have  been  due  the  great  wall  of  China,  for  the 
protection  of  its  remote  towns,  as  to  them,  on  the  oiher 
hand,  was  certainly  due  the  foundation  of  Venice.  The 
first  inhabitants  of  what  has  been  since  that  queenly 
city,  along  whose  liquid  and  level  streets  the  traveler 
passes  between  palaces,  churches  and  fascinating 
squares,  in  constant  delight — its  first  inhabitants  fied 
before  Attila,  to  the  flooded  lagoons  which  were  after- 
Tvard  to  blossom  into  the  beauty  of  a  consummate  art. 
The  fearful  crash  of  blood  and  fire  in  which  Aquileia 
and  Padua  fell  smote  Venice  into  existence. 

But  even  the  city  thus  born  of  war  must  afterward  be 
built  up  by  peace,  when  the  strifes  which  had  pushed 
it  to  its  sudden  beginning  had  died  into  the  distant 
silence.  The  fishing  industry,  the  m.anufacture  of  salt, 
the  timid  commerce,  gradually  expanding,  till  it  left  the 
rivers  and  sought  the  sea — these  and  other  related 
industries  liad  made  Venetian  galleys  known  on  the 
eastern  Mediterranean  before  the  immense  rush  of  tlie 
Crusaders  crowded  tumultuously  over  its  quays  nnd 
many  ])ridges.  Its  variety  of  industry  and  its  commer- 
cial connections  turned  that  vast  movement  into  another 
source  of  wealth.  It  rose  rapidly  to  that  naval  su- 
premacy which  enabled  it  to  capture  piratical  vessels 
and  wealthy  galleons,  to  seize  or  sack  Ionian  cities,   to 


44  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE, 

storm  Byzantium  and  make  the  south  of  Greece  its 
suburb.  Its  manufactures  were  multiplied.  Its  dock- 
yards were  thronged  with  busy  workmen.  Its  palaces 
were  crowded  with  precious  and  famous  works  of  art, 
while  themselves  marvels  of  beauty.  St.  Maik's  un- 
folded its  magnificent  loveliness  above  the  great  square. 
In  the  palace  adjoining  was  the  seat  of  a  dominion  at  the 
time  unsurpassed,  and  still  brilliant  in  history;  and  it 
was  in  no  fanciful  or  exaggerated  pride  that  the  Doge 
was  wont  yearly,  on  Ascension  Da}^  to  wed  the  Adri- 
atic with  a  ring,  as  the  bridegroom  weds  the  bride. 

Dreamlike,  as  it  seems,  equally  with  Amr.terdam,  the 
larger  and  richer  ''Venice  of  the  North,"  it  was  erected 
by  hardy  hands.  The  various  works  and  arts  of  peace, 
with  a  prosperous  commerce,  were  the  real  piles,  sunken 
beneath  the  flashing  surface,  on  which  church  and  pal- 
ace, piazza  and  arsenal  all  arose.  It  was  only  when 
these  unseen  supports  inwardly  failed  that  advance- 
ment ceased,  and  the  horses  of  St.  Mark's  at  last  were 
bridled.  Not  all  the  wars,  with  Genoa,  Hungary,  with 
Western  Europe,  the  Greek  Empire  or  the  Ottoman — 
not  earthquake,  plague  or  conflagration,  though  by  all 
it  was  smitten — overwhelmed  the  city  whose  place  in 
Europe  had  been  so  distinguished.  The  decadence  of 
enterprise,  the  growing  discredit  put  upon  industry,  the 
final  discovery  by  Yasco  de  Gama  of  the  passage  around 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  diverting  traflSc  into  new  chan- 
nels— these  laid  their  silent  and  tightened  grasp  on  the 
power  of  Venice,  till 

The  salt  sea-weed 
Clung  to  the  marble  of  her  palaces, 

and  the  glory  of  the  past  was  merged  in  a  gloom  which 
later  centuries  have  not  lightened.  There  is  a  lesson 
and  a  promise  in  the  fact. 


ORATION  BY  REV,   DR.   STORRS,         45 

New  York  itself  may  almost  be  said  to  have  sprung  from 
war;  as  tlie  vast  excitements  of  the  forty  years'  wrestle 
between  Spain  and  its  revolted  provinces  gave  incentive 
at  least  to  the  settlement  of  New  Netheriand.  But  the 
city,  since  its  real  development  was  begun,  has  been 
almost  wholly  built  up  by  peace;  and  the  swiftness 
of  its  progress  in  our  own  time,  which  challenges  par- 
allel, shows  what,  if  the  ministry  of  that  shall  continue, 
may  be  looked  for  in  the  f utui'e. 

When  the  Dutch  traders  raised  their  storehouse  of 
logs  on  yonder  untamed  and  desolate  strand,  perhaps 
as  early  as  1615;  when  the  Walloons  established  their 
settlement  on  this  side  of  the  river,  in  1624,  at  that 
"Walloon's  Bay,"  which  is  since  called  the  Wallabout; 
or  when,  later,  in  May,  1626,  Manhattan  Island,  esti- 
mated to  contain  22,000  acres,  was  purchased  from  the 
Indians  for  $24,  paid  in  beads,  buttons  and  trinkets, 
and  the  block  house  w^as  built,  with  cedar  palisades,  on 
the  site  of  the  Battery — it  is,  of  course,  commonplace 
to  say  that  they  who  had  come  hither  could  scarcely 
have  had  the  least  conception  of  what  a  career  they  thus 
were  commencing  for  two  great  cities.  But  it  is  not  so 
wholly  commonplace  to  say  that  those  who  saw  this 
now  wealthy  and  splendid  New  York  a  hundred  years 
since,  less  conspicuous  than  Boston,  far  smaller  than 
Philadelphia — with  its  first  bank  established  in  1784, 
•and  not  fully  chartered  till  seven  years  later;  with  its 
first  daily  paper  in  1785,  its  first  ship  in  the  Eastern 
trade  returning  in  May  of  the  same  year;  its  first  Di- 
rectory published  in  1786, and  containing  only  900  names ; 
its  Broadway  extending  only  to  St.  Paul's;  the  grounds 
about  Reade  Street  grazing-fields  for  cattle,  and  ducks 
still  shot  in  that  Beekman's  Swamp  which  the  traffic  in 
leather  has  since  made  famous;  or  those  who  saw  it 


46  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

even  ifty  years  ago,  when  its  population  was  little  more 
than  one-third  of  the  present  population  of  this  younger 
city,  when  its  first  Mayor  had  not  yei  been  chosen  by 
popular  election,  when  gas  had  but  lately  been  intro- 
duced, and  the  superseding  of  the  primitive  pumps  by 
Croton  water  had  not  yet  been  projected — the}^,  all, 
could  hardly  have  imagined  what  already  the  city 
should  have  become,  the  recognized  centre  of  the  com- 
merce of  the  continent,  one  of  the  principal  cities  of  the 
world. 

So  those  who  have  lived  in  this  city  from  childhood, 
and  who  hardly  yet  claim  the  dignities  of  age,  could 
scarcely  have  conjectured,  w^hen  looking  on  what  Mr. 
Murphy  recalled  as  the  village  of  his  youth,  "a  hamlet 
of  a  hundred  houses,"  that  it  should  have  become  in  our 
time  a  city  of  nearly  80,000  dwelling-houses,  occupied 
by  twice  as  many  families;  with  a  population,  by  the 
census  rates  of  little  less  than  700,000;  with  more  than 
150,000  children  in  its  public  and  private  schools;  with 
330  miles  of  paved  streets,  as  many  as  last  year  in  New 
York,  and  with  more  than  200  additional  miles  impatient- 
ly waiting  to  be  paved;  with  130  miles  of  street  railway 
track,  over  which  last  year  88,000,000  passengers  were 
carried;  with  nearly  2,500  miles  of  telegraph  and  tel- 
ephone wire  knitting  it  together;  with  35,000,000  gal- 
lons of  water,  the  best  on  the  continent,  to  which 
20,000,000  more  are  soon  to  be  added,  daily  distributed 
in  its  houses,  through  360  miles  of  pipe;  with  an  aggre- 
gate value  of  real  propert}^  exceeding  certainly  $400,- 
000,000,  with  an  annual  tax  levy  of  $6,500,000;  with 
manufactures  in  it  whose  reported  product  in  1880  was 
$103,000,000;  with  a  water  front,  of  pier,  dock,  basin, 
canal,  already  exceeding  twent3^-five  miles,  and  not  as 
yet  half  developed,  at  which  lies  shipping  from  all  the 


I 


ORATION  BY  REV    DR.   STORRS.  47 

world,  more  largely  than  at  the  piers  of  New  York;  and 
finally  with  what  to  most  modern  communities  appears 
to  flash  as  a  costly  but  brilliant  diamond  necklace,  a 
public  debt,  beginning'  now  to  diminish,  it  is  true,  but 
still  approaching,  in  net  amount  $37,500,000! 

THE  FUTURE  OF  NEW  YORK  AKD  BROOKLYN. 

The  child  watches,  in  a  happy  wonder,  the  swelling 
film  of  soapy  water  into  whose  iridescent  globe  he  has 
blown  the  speck  from  the  bowl  of  the  pipe.  But  this 
amazing  development  around  us  is  not  of  airy  and  van- 
ishing fil  ms.  It  is  solidly  constructed  in  marble  and  brick, 
in  stone  and  iron,  while  the  proportions  to  which  it  has 
swelled  surpass  precedent  and  rebuke  the  timidity  of  the 
boldest  prediction.  But  that  which  has  built  it  has 
been  simply  the  industry,  manifold,  constant,  going 
on  in  these  cities,  to  which  peace  offers  incentive  and 
room. 

Their  future  advancement  is  to  come  in  like  manner; 
not  through  a  prestige  derived  from  their  history;  not  by 
the  gradual  increments  of  their  wealth,  already  collect- 
ed; not  by  the  riches  which  they  pull  to  themselves 
from  other  cities  and  distant  coasts;  not  even  from  their 
beautiful  fortune  of  location;  but  by  prosperous  man- 
ufactures prosecuted  in  them;  b}^  the  traffic  which  radi- 
ates over  the  country;  by  the  foreign  commerce  which, 
in  values  increasing  every  year,  seeks  this  harbor. 
Each  railway,  whose  rapid  wheels  roll  hither,  from  East 
or  West,  from  North  or  South,  from  the  rocks  of  New- 
foundland or  the  copper  deposits  of  Lake  Superior,  from 
the  orange  groves  of  Florida,  the  Louisiana  bayous,  the 
silver  ridges  of  the  West,  the  Golden  Gate,  gives  its 
guarantee  of  growth  to  the  still  young  metropolis.  On 
the  cotton-fields  of  the  South,  and  its  sugar- plantations; 


48  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

on  coal  mines  and  iron  mines,  on  the  lakes  which 
winter  roofs  with  ice,  and  from  which  drips  refreshing 
coolness  through  our  summer;  on  fisheries,  factories, 
wlieat-fields,  pine-forests,  on  meadows  wealtliy  with 
grahis  or  grass,  and  orchards  bending  beneatli  their  bur- 
dens, this  enlarging  prosperity  must  be  maintained,  and 
on  the  steamships,  and  the  telegraph  lines,  which  iuter- 
w^eave  us  with  all  the  world.  The  swart  miner  must 
do  his  part  for  it ;  the  ingenious  workman,  in  whatever 
department;  the  ploughman  in  the  field,  and  the  fisher- 
man on  the  banks;  the  man  of  science,  putting  nature  to 
the  question;  the  laborer  with  no  other  capital  than  his 
muscle ;  the  sailor  on  the  sea,  wherever  commerce  opens 
its  wings. 

Our  Arch  of  Triumph  is  therefore  fitly  this  Bridge  of 
Peace.  Our  Bradenburg  Gate,  bearing  on  its  summit  no 
car  of  military  victory,  is  this  great  work  of  industrial 
skill.  It  stands  not  like  the  arch  famous  at  Milan,  out- 
side the  city,  but  in  the  midst  of  these  united  and  busy 
populations.  And  if  the  tranquil  public  order  wiiich  it 
celebrates  and  prefigures  shall  continue  as  years  proceed, 
not  London  itself  a  century  hence  will  surpass  the  com- 
pass of  this  united  city  by  the  sea,  in  which  all  civilized 
nations  of  mankind  have  already  their  many  represent- 
atives, and  to  which  the  world  shall  pay  an  increasing 
annual  tribute. 

And  so  the  last  suggestion  comes,  which  the  hour 
presents  and  of  which  time  allows  the  expression. 

It  was  not  to  an  American  mind  that  we  owed  the 
Monitor  of  which  I  have  spoken;  but  to  one  trained  in 
Swedish  schools,  the  Swedish  army,  and  representing 
that  brave  nationality.  It  is  not  to  an  American  mind 
that  the  scheme  of  construction  carried  out  in  this  Bridge 
is  to  be  ascribed;  but  to  one  representing  the  German 


ORATION  OF  REV.   DR.  STORRS.  49 

peoples,  who,  in  such  enriching  and  fruitful  multitudes 
have  found  here  their  home.  American  enterprise, 
American  money,  built  them  both.  But  the  skill  which 
devised,  and  much,  no  doubt,  of  the  labor  which 
wrought  them,  came  from  afar. 

Local  and  particular  as  is  the  work,  therefore,  it  rep- 
resents that  fellowship  of  the  nations  which  is  more  and 
more  prominently  a  fact  of  our  times,  and  which  gives 
to  these  cities  incessant  augmentation.  When,  by  and 
by,  on  yonder  island,  the  majestic  French  Statue  of 
Liberty  shall  stand,  holding  in  its  hand  the  radiant 
crown  of  electric  flames,  and  answering  by  them  to  those 
as  brilliant  along  this  causeway,  our  beautiful  bay  will 
have  taken  what  specially  illuminates  and  adorns  it 
from  Central  and  from  Western  Europe.  The  distant 
lands  from  which  oceans  divide  us,  though  we  touch 
them  each  moment  with  the  fingers  of  the  telegraph, 
will  have  set  their  conspicuous  double  crown  on  the 
head  of  our  harbor.  The  alliances  of  nations,  the 
peace  of  the  world,  will  seem  to  find  illustrious  predic- 
tion in  such  superb  and  novel  regalia. 

RELATIONS    OF    THE    TWO   CITIES    TO    THE    STATE    AND 

NATION. 

Friends  and  fellow-citizens,  let  us  not  forget  that  in 
the  growth  of  these  cities,  henceforth  united,  and  des- 
tined ere  long  to  be  formally  one,  lies  either  a  threat, 
or  one  of  the  conspicuous  promises  of  the  time. 

Cities  have  always  been  powers  in  history.  Athens 
educated  Greece,  as  well  as  adorned  it,  while  Corinth 
filled  the  throbbing  and  thirsty  Hellenic  veins  with  poi- 
soned blood.  The  weight  of  Constantinople  broke  the 
Roman  empire  asunder.  The  capture  of  the  same  mag- 
nificent city  gave  to  the  Turks  their  establishment  in 


50  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

Europe  for  the  following  centuries.  Even  where  they 
have  not  had  such  a  commanding  pre-eminence  of  loca- 
tion, the  social,  political,  moral  force  proceeding  from 
cities  has  been  vigorous  in  impression,  immense  in  ex- 
tent. The  passion  of  Paris,  for  a  hundred  years,  has 
created  or  directed  the  sentiment  of  France.  Berlin  is 
more  than  the  legislative  or  administrative  centre  of  the 
German  Empire.  And  even  a  government  as  autocratic 
as  that  of  the  Czar,  in  a  country  as  undeveloped  as  Rus- 
sia, has  to  consult  the  popular  feeling  of  St.  Petersburg 
or  of  Moscow. 

In  our  Nation  political  power  is  widely  distributed, 
and  the  largest  or  wealthiest  commercial  centre  can 
have  but  its  share.  Great  as  is  the  weight  of  the  aggre- 
gate vote  in  these  henceforth  compacted  cities,  the  vote 
of  the  State  will  always  overbear  it.  Amid  the  suffrages 
of  the  Nation  at  large,  it  can  only  be  reckoned  as  one  of 
many  consenting  or  conflicting  factors.  But  the  influ- 
ence which  constantly  proceeds  from  these  cities,  on 
their  journalism  not  only,  or  on  the  issues  of  their  book- 
presses,  or  on  the  multitudes  going  forth  from  them,  but 
on  the  example  presented  in  them,  of  educational,  social, 
religious  life,  this,  for  shadow  and  check,  or  for  fine  in- 
spiration is  already  of  unlimited  extent,  of  incalculable 
force.  It  must  increase  as  they  expand,  and  are  lifted 
before  the  country  to  a  new  elevation. 

A  larger  and  a  smaller  sun  are  sometimes  associated, 
astronomers  tell  us,  to  form  a  binary  centre  in  the  heav- 
ens, for  what  is  doubtless  an  unseen  system,  receiving 
from  them  impulse  and  light.  On  a  scale  not  utterly  in- 
significant a  parallel  may  be  hereafter  suggested  in  the 
relation  of  these  combined  cities  to  a  part,  at  least,  of 
our  national  system.  Their  attitude  and  action  during 
the  war — successfully  closed  under  the  gallant  military 


ORATION  OF  REV,  DR.  STORRS.  51 

leadership  of  men  whom  we  gladly  welcome  and  honor 
— were  of  vast  advantage  to  the  national  cause.  The 
moral,  political,  intellectual  temper  which  dominates  in 
them  as  years  go  on  will  touch  with  beauty,  or  scar 
with  scorching  and  baleful  heats,  extended  regions. 
Their  religious  life,  as  it  grows  in  intensity  or  with  a 
faint  and  failing  lustre,  will  be  repeated,  in  answering 
image,  from  the  widening  frontier.  The  beneficence 
which  gives  them  grace  and  consecration,  and  which — 
as  lately — they  follow  to  the  grave  with  universal  bene- 
diction, or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  selfish  ambitions 
which  crowd  and  crush  along  their  streets,  intent  only 
on  accumulated  wealth  and  its  sumptuous  display,  or 
the  glittering  vices  which  they  accept  and  set  on  high — 
these  will  make  impression  on  those  who  never  cross  the 
continent  to  our  homes,  to  whom  our  journals  are  but 
names. 

Surely  we  should  not  go  from  this  hour,  which  marks 
a  new  era  in  the  history  of  these  cities  and  which  points 
to  their  future  indefinite  expansion,  without  the  pur- 
pose in  each  of  us  that  so  far  forth,  as  in  us  lies,  with 
their  increase  in  numbers,  wealth,  equipment,  shall  also 
proceed,  with  equal  step,  their  progress  in  whatever  is 
noblest  and  best  in  private  and  in  public  life;  that  all 
which  sets  humanity  forward  shall  come  in  them  to 
ampler  endowment,  more  renowned  exhibition:  so  that, 
linked  together  as  hereafter  they  must  be,  and  seeing 
"the  purple  deepening  in  their  robes  of  power,"  they 
may  be  always  increasingly  conscious  of  fulfilled  obli- 
gation to  the  Nation  and  to  God;  may  make  the  land  at 
whose  magnificent  gateway  they  stand  their  constant 
debtor;  and  may  contribute  their  mighty  part  toward 
that  ultimate  perfect  human  society  for  which  the  seer 
could  find   no  image  so  meet  or  majestic  as  that  of  a 


52  THE  GREAT  BRIDGE. 

city,  coming  down  from  above,  its  stones  laid  with  fair 
colors,  its  foundations  with  sapphires,  its  windows  of 
agates,  its  gates  of  carbuncles,  and  all  its  borders  of 
pleasant  stones  with  the  sovereign  promise  resplendent 
above  it:  *'And  great  shall  be  the  peace  of  thy  chil- 
dren," 


^^^^:^^^A^J>;■\^v^^^;^^5^«^A^^^ss^^^ 


